Massive Health, the San Francisco startup that aims to tackle major health care problems with tools such as mobile apps and big data technology, launched its first iPhone app “Eatery” back in November 2011.
For users, the Eatery app is almost deceptively simple: You use it take a photo of what you’re eating, grade it on a scale of “fit to fat,” and give your rating to others’ meals as well. But for Massive Health, it’s been a veritable firehose of data about the whats, whens, and hows of nutrition from all over the world: Eatery amassed more than 7.68 million food ratings from over 50 countries during its first five months alone. And for the first time the company is publicly pulling back the curtain on what it’s learned so far.
Since Massive Health is all about making information about health accessible and attractive to the mainstream, the company has put its Eatery data in a series of infographics. You can find them all on Massive Health’s official blog, and we’ve embedded one of them in this post (it’s a big one, so we downsized it at first glance — click on the image to enlarge it.)
Here are a few of the interesting findings:
- Our diets are not as personal as we think: Our friends influence what we choose to eat by 34.5 percent.
- You probably aren’t as healthy as you think: 72 percent of foods on the Eatery were rated higher by the user than by others.
- Our willpower slips as the day goes on: People eat 1.7 percent less healthy with each passing hour of the day, and dinner is 15.9 percent less healthy than breakfast.
- Fun facts abound: New Yorkers eat 3.2 times more arugula than other cities, while Philadelphians eat 3.7 times more bagels than others.
It’s a lot to chew on (terrible pun intended), so it was great to have Massive Health co-founder Aza Raskin stop by TechCrunch TV to talk us through the information in person. Watch the video below to hear Raskin talk about what the Eatery has learned so far, and what’s on deck next from Massive Health in the months ahead.