Jourvie: The App Designed To Keep Eating Disorders In Check

When Ekaterina Karabasheva developed anorexia as a teenager, not only did she manage to conquer it two years later, she also went on to develop an online tool that would help other people tackling eating disorders take back control of their lives.

Autor*in Marisa Pettit, 04.06.16

When Ekaterina Karabasheva developed anorexia as a teenager, not only did she manage to conquer it two years later, she also went on to develop an online tool that would help other people tackling eating disorders take back control of their lives.

Recent reports suggest that incidences of eating disorders are currently on the rise, fuelled by a variety of factors, including increased exposure to images of celebrity bodies. And just like so many currently tackling a disorder such as this, when Ekaterina Karabasheva started treatment for her anorexia at the age of 18, she was sent to visit a therapist to talk about her daily food intake. What had she eaten, when and with whom? She was meant to keep the information about her diet written down on charts, and take them along to each session. However, she often forgot to bring it along, had forgotten to fill it in, or just felt uncomfortable writing information in public or when eating with friends. After she overcame the disorder, she started work developing an app which would make the whole process a lot more simple.

 
Working together with doctors at Berlin’s Charité hospital she developed the app called Jourvie. It functions in just the same way as a normal diary, except that the fact that it’s an app means users can much more quickly and discreetly make food notes after eating. And if they still need a paper version too, they can be exported and printed out. The app also features a reminder function, coping strategies should tricky situations arise, and it even allows you to add motivational pictures and quotations to keep spirits high. With the increase in eating disorders having been reported as being most prominent among young people, an app like this seems like practical support for a generation more at home with a touchscreen phone than a pen and paper. © Jourvie

Jourvie was recently one of the finalists in the Google Impact Challenge, scooping a huge 250,000 EUR to help develop the project even further. And they’re currently looking for volunteers to test drive the beta version of the iPhone version of their app, so if you feel like Jourvie is something that could help you out, just visit their website and drop them your email address.

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