There is a growing fondness on mobile health and fitness applications in the market today. From staying in shape to looking after the whole family’s eating habits, mobile developers are spurred to come up with solutions that address growing demands across the fitness and healthcare industry.  Especially for people on the go, these mobile apps are heaven-sent.

The emerging market of mobile nutrition could actually improve and individual’s health according to a recent study. Here are some apps that might be just what you need to stay healthy.

Shopwell 2.0

The healthy eating app recently launched version 2.0 of their iPhone app, enabling shoppers to quickly build a health-conscious grocery lists. This personalized feature asks for age, gender, dietary goals and food preferences. From this set of information, the app will deliver a hearty line-up of recommended food and healthier alternatives.

Brian Witlin, CEO of ShopWell shares the overall picture of nutrition and how the app fits well in this scene:

“Nutrition is not one size fits all, but most guides or healthy eating resources treat it as though it is. In reality each person has specific goals and restrictions, and most shoppers have to balance the needs and preferences of a whole family of individuals. It’s incredibly difficult. ShopWell has the largest, most accurate, dietitian-screened compilation of nutrition facts panels in the U.S. It’s like having the food label reading expertise of a Registered Dietitian with you while you shop.”

Shopwell provides comprehensive nutrition information and product scores depending on your unique needs. The app does the work on reading nutrition labels and recommends what’s good and what doesn’t suit you.

GAIN

GAIN parades  “cloud in your pocket” technology and in an increasingly competitive market, this one’s going to be tough to beat.  Aside from its sophisticated platform, the digital personal trainer app for iPhone users is also introducing an all-new improved version.  GAIN 3.0 revolutionizes and personalizes workouts for individuals via the “GAIN Plan”. This new app also features audio coaching, high definition exercise images and trainer cues.

Founder and CEO of GAIN, Nick Gammell shares his excitement over the enhancements made and how strongly they fare against the industry’s competition:

“There’s a clear market shift taking place as fitness companies move from a dated ‘tracking’ approach to a more helpful ‘workout guidance’ system. GAIN has always been a quant-based company at heart, and is better positioned to lead this market than any other platform. GAIN is miles ahead of the competition due to its data-driven infrastructure, customization algorithms and open platform approach.”

This is a free app in iTunes App Store. The paid version is an expansion pack, offering a broader and more extensive fitness coaching platform. It also has yoga workouts, sports performance training and rehabilitative programs.

NCSF

The National Council on Strength and Fitness (NCSF) has joined the mobile health and fitness bandwagon with the launch of the Personal Trainer Calculators app. The app aims to optimize the personal training experience and gauge the client’s next step, workout demands and physical performance. Included in the list of calculations is caloric expenditure, target body weight, daily energy nutrient intake, body fat, body mass index (BMI) and more.

NCSF Director of Education, Sean Grieve sees convenience and functionality tied in one app, saying, “personal training is a results-oriented business and the ease of accessibility and functionality of these applications will make programming and tracking much more efficient and effective.”

The app is available for Apple and Android users.

Jybe

Another intuitive app, Jybe launches personalized recommendation app for effortless health decisions. Based from the likes and dislikes of friends and your personal choice and fitness goals, this program will do the searching and decision-making on where and  what to eat.

Arnab Bhattacharjee, co-founder and CEO briefly explains how the app works differently and efficiently:

“A recommendation app should create conversations with users and should not be a one-way street for communication. It must let you search, browse and filter data but it should also help the user understand why recommendations are given to increase a user’s trust. The Jybe app combines all of these things — search, browse, recommend, explain, and action and puts it into a single experience.”

Kiip

To keep the users faithful to their fitness goals and increase engagement, Kiip gives away rewards for fitness milestones. It has already branched out from being just a pure gaming app to a fitness program that can be accessed using mobile devices.

Venturebeat offers an example of how “moments” may be rewarded.  “For instance, if you log your run for the day in MapMyRun, you can get a reward from PepsiCo’s Propel Zero brand. The same will be true for achievement moments in apps such as Nexercise, LoloFit, and Gym-Pact. Pepsi will mail a Propel zero package to you.”

With hundreds of apps developed devoted to weight loss and fitness goals, there is clearly a market for mobile in the avenues of nutrition, medicine and fitness.  What’s your favorite personal health app for the iPhone?