What 138 People Told Us About Nutrition, Health, and Being Left Behind
By MyMealAid Team
Before we built anything, we asked.
Over the past year and a half, we ran two community surveys: 73 responses in early 2025, and 65 more in 2026. We asked about eating habits, health conditions, nutritional deficiencies, cultural foods, and what support people were actually missing.
One comment stopped us in our tracks.
"Teach us. Our doctors don't got no time for us."
That sentence is why MyMealAid exists.
People are trying to prevent serious health conditions…without a roadmap.
Across both surveys, the health conditions people flagged most were diabetes and prediabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure.
Not as distant possibilities but as present realities in their own lives and in their families.
People weren't just worried about themselves.
They were watching parents, siblings, and community members deal with these conditions and quietly asking: how do I make sure that doesn't happen to me?
That motivation is powerful. But motivation alone doesn't tell you what to eat for breakfast, how to read a nutrition label, or what to swap in the meal you've been making your whole life.
Preventive nutrition only works when it's practical. And for most people, the practical part is exactly what's missing.
Nutritional deficiencies are widespread and mostly unaddressed through food.
Iron deficiency was the most commonly reported nutritional concern across both surveys by a significant margin.
Vitamin D and B12 followed closely, along with calcium, potassium, and fiber intake.
What stood out wasn't just how common these deficiencies were. It was how little food-based guidance people had received about them.
One respondent shared something that stayed with us: “my daughter has chronically low iron levels, is tired of taking supplements, and doesn't know how to maintain her levels through food.”
Another shared that: “during my pregnancy, I didn't even know my folic acid was low and didn't know food could help.” Her doctor hadn't told her about food options.
These aren't isolated stories.
They're the norm for a large portion of the people we heard from.
Learned they’re at risk, perhaps supplementing, but without a clear understanding of how to eat in a way that supports their own body.
That gap is exactly what MyMealAid is being built to close.
Cultural food identity is a health equity issue.
Nearly every respondent from a culturally diverse background said the same thing: existing nutrition tools don't work for their cultural foods.
Halal dietary needs were mentioned consistently across both surveys.
A few areas such as South Asian, Middle Eastern or even Latin American food traditions came up again and again, not as preferences to be accommodated, but as core parts of how people eat, who they eat with, and what food means to them.
One respondent put it simply: she doesn't want to make two separate meals, one healthy version for herself and a different one for her family. She just wants healthier versions of what they already love.
This is a health equity issue, not a preference issue.
When nutrition tools are built exclusively around Western food patterns, they fail entire communities, the same communities that often carry the highest burden of preventable health conditions.
MyMealAid is being built to change that.
What people are actually asking for:
Across 138 responses, the requests were clear and consistent:
Practical guidance for managing health risks through food, not vague advice
Food-based support for nutritional deficiencies, not just supplement recommendations
Cultural recipes and meal ideas that don't require abandoning their identity
Beginner-friendly education that explains the why behind food choices
Affordable, accessible support that doesn't require a private dietitian appointment
And perhaps most tellingly: almost nobody asked for calorie tracking. What they wanted was understanding. Guidance. Support that actually fit their real life.
As one respondent wrote: "This app can help a lot of people who have health issue risks and can help those who can't go to a doctor."
What this means for how we're building
Every feature in MyMealAid traces back to something this community told us. The preventive health focus. The nutritional deficiency support.
The cultural food inclusivity.
The beginner-friendly education.
The grocery guidance.
None of it is guesswork… it came directly from 138 people being honest about what wasn't working and what they actually needed.
We're still building. We're still listening. And we'll keep sharing what we learn.
Want to add your voice? Take our latest community survey or join the waitlist for early access.
