A friend of mine busted out her iPhone last weekend at Olive Garden and started tip-tapping away in the middle of our salad and breadsticks. When I asked her what’s up she explained how she’s religiously been using “MyFitnessPal” for over two years and swears she’s lost over 40 lbs. with its robust calorie documentation process.

The amount of trust I saw placed in that app and in many others like “Fitbit” is causing the app market to change phenomenally.

Using a health and fitness mobile app is now shown to be preferred to actually going to a physician by 66% of the US population. As part of this trend, health and fitness mobile apps are tracked as being the top 3^rd most impactful mobile trend in 2016.

So what are people actually doing with these apps? Well…

So it looks like these apps are making millions of lives easier and better overall. But this growth didn’t come out of nowhere. We want to know why this particular section of the app market is booming so much in 2016.

Why so much growth?

With 8,000+ apps in the health and fitness category, the stiff competition between these apps have forced the providers to consistently improve their service.

The competition has gotten so rough that the average rating score on app stores for the most popular health and fitness apps is excellent across the board.

Thanks to an ARC study, we were able to dive deeper than this, and really find out what it is about these mobile apps that get these great reviews. Here’s what they found-

1)      Intuitive and simple user-interface

2)      Elegant and smooth transition animations

3)      Highly accurate information

4)      Large databases for tracking purposes

5)      A fun and uplifting user experience

But what does this trend mean?

Although physicians can obviously never truly be replaced, there are mentions in multiple studies that foretell “physicians being left behind with this new wave of mobile apps and wearables”. Sure, this is a bit over sensationalized, but there is some truth to it. By this I mean, physicians can use this massive growth to their advantage and get their names out there.

Mobile app development can be done hand in hand with the physicians themselves which can increase the app’s credibility while also leading to good branding opportunities.

What could be left behind, though, are the apps that refuse to innovate and meet the demands of an explosively growing market. Right now, mobile app development is surging in large pharma companies that seek to educate users on drugs and foods they ingest, which offers all kinds of opportunities to physicians to influence their future.

With this mobile app trend really becoming a part of our lives just now in 2016, it’s the perfect time to introduce your own health and fitness app.

If you’re considering building one for your brand, let’s talk.