By Staff Sgt. Sarah E. Stegman, 2d Bomb Wing Public Affairs
From www.barksdale.af.mil

BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. - The Barksdale Fitness Center has a new pilot program to assist airmen reach their fitness goals by tracking what and how much food they intake.

The online tool, Vitabot, is an interactive nutrition training system that uses a food database from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and guidelines from the Institute of Medicine to help Airmen balance nutrition with food products.

“This program has been at Barksdale for about three months,” said Tech. Sgt. Willie Andino, fitness center supervisor. “We’re the only base in Air Combat Command who is testing it.” .

So far, more than 150 people have signed up for the online meal planning and tracking program. Anyone affiliated with Barksdale can sign up for the program, whether on active-duty, retired, dependents or reservists, Sergeant Andino explained.

Vitabot, which can be accessed via the Internet from anywhere – home station, home and deployed environments – uses its vast database to track a person’s intake throughout the day and makes suggestions to the user on better nutritional choices to reach a desired goal.
“The program is tailored to each individual user and has different settings depending on what the person’s desired goal is,” said Sergeant Andino. “For example, the program realizes the nutritional need of someone who’s pregnant is different than a person who wants to lose a little weight before a physical training test.”

Viabot uses an Interactive Report Card to let the user know where they stand with nutrient intake and helps to make grade.

To sign up for Vitabot individuals need to contact Staff Sgt. Angela Kimbrough or Sergeant Andino at the Fitness Center for an activation code. Then, visit the Barksdale Vitabot Web site and click on “Create New Account” and Enter in the six-digit code and the name of the staff member who gave the code.

Once signed-up Vitabot users can create your meal plans, browse other meal plans and build a graph to track results.

For more information, call the fitness center at 456-4135.

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