Technology has already been used for some time now to help consumers keep track of wellness factors from diet to sexual activity, but a new application from California-based Health Analytic Services takes a comprehensive approach that aims to help users track virtually everything that has an effect on their health.
TheCarrot.com is a free, anonymous service that provides easy-to-use tools with a calendar format to help users track a wide variety of health-related topics. Trackers are available for more obvious factors like exercise, diet and medicines as well as less obvious ones like job satisfaction, mood, sleep and TV watching—all together, the list currently includes nearly 30 aspects of health that can be tracked online (users are also invited to request new ones). Users decide how often and how much detail to enter on each area they're tracking, and they can record it in multiple ways—numerically, textually or with photographs. Using theCarrot.com they can record their exercise by time, score, distance, or rate of perceived exertion, for example; they can also use a cell phone to snap photos of their workout, the sandwich they ate for lunch, or their expanding pregnant belly. All that information can then be used to set goals or identify areas for improvement, and users can create single- or cross-category reports to share with their doctor, nutritionist, fitness trainer or others. Ultimately, theCarrot.com aims to reveal how different aspects of health interrelate, such as how exercise affects sleep or diet affects mood, providing a big-picture window on wellness.
Douglas Trauner, CEO and founder of Health Analytic Services, explains: “Users of TheCarrot.com typically start with a single goal—for example—managing their weight. As users take advantage of the trend reporting and learn more about themselves, they begin to incorporate additional trackers to see how things like sleep and job satisfaction have a profound affect on their ability to manage their weight.”
TheCarrot.com was named “Best New Application” at the Health 2.0 Conference last fall. Currently, however, it supports only US-based users; one to localize to a language and culture near you?
Website: www.thecarrot.com
Contact: info@thecarrot.com
Spotted by: Kate Donlon
Thanks for sharing. I've been using TheCarrot.com for 6 months now and have finally figured out that my headaches are definitely related to when I eat too much and don't get enough exercise. I've now lost 15 lbs and feel great.