Improving food shopping behaviour: A model-based review of mobile applications to assist with healthy and sustainable grocery shopping

Abstract

Background: Awareness of health and sustainability is increasing and can be supported by suitable smartphone applications. Most applications are designed based on commercial or ad-hoc considerations, although models for improving behavioural patterns and motivation have been studied in psychology and the social sciences. These models have so far not been widely applied to application design. Objective: Grocery shopping is one example where behaviour-supporting applications are being widely used. This paper aims at reviewing existing applications in this domain and determine how these support motivational aspects identified by current behavioural models. Methods: Existing behavioural theories are merged into a single redundancy free and comprehensive model. The model is used to categorise application features to assess the type and strength of support with respect to motivating healthy and sustainable grocery shopping behaviour. Results: The most popular Android applications in this area are evaluated, identifying potential strengths and weaknesses with respect to optimally supporting desired behaviour. Conclusion: The most popular applications do not support desired behaviour best. By indicating which aspects of the behavioural model are supported by a mobile application it is possible to identify features not included that could be supplemented or improved in future application development.

Keywords

• Health
• Sustainability
• Behavioural theories
• Application design requirements
• Grocery shopping
• Recipe apps