Care approach (intuitive eating mode)
A per-patient switch between the structured app and an intuitive eating reframe that hides numbers, plans, and progress bars in the patient's app while leaving your dashboard unchanged.
Most patients do best with structure: a plan, gentle progress, a fullness scale. But some care teams are actively practicing Intuitive Eating with a patient (Tribole & Resch), and for them the numbers and plans get in the way of the work. The Care approach card on the patient's Settings tab is where you make that call, per patient, without changing anything for anyone else.
It is off by default. Every patient starts in Structured, which is the app exactly as the rest of these docs describe it. Nothing happens until you deliberately switch a patient over.
The two choices
The top of the card is a choice between two care approaches:
| Approach | What it means |
|---|---|
| Structured | The default. The full app: calorie goal, progress bars, nutrient numbers, the meal plan day view, the grocery list, and the plan-adherence question. |
| Intuitive eating | A permissive reframe. The app drops numbers, plans, and progress in favor of hunger and satisfaction cues. See below for exactly what changes. |
This is permissive, not prescriptive. It is meant for patients whose care team has them practicing Intuitive Eating. Absent this switch, the app stays structured.
The two standalone toggles
Below the approach choice are two independent on/off toggles, Meal plan and Grocery list, both on by default. They let you drop just those two surfaces without committing to the full intuitive reframe. A patient can stay in Structured mode with progress bars and their fullness scale, but with no meal plan day view and no grocery list, if that is the right fit.
When you switch a patient to Intuitive eating, the Meal plan and Grocery list toggles are forced off, because both surfaces are hidden in that mode anyway. Your stored on/off choice is remembered, so switching back to Structured restores exactly what you had before.
What the patient's app hides in intuitive mode
When a patient is set to Intuitive eating, their app quietly removes everything that reads as a target or a score:
- the calorie goal and every progress bar
- nutrient numbers and targets (see Nutrition visibility)
- the meal plan day view (see Meal plans and the grocery list)
- the shared grocery list
- the "did this match your plan?" question at the post-meal check-in
- goal-hit notifications
None of this is deleted, it is just not shown to the patient. Flip back to Structured and it all returns.
What the patient's app adds in intuitive mode
Intuitive mode also reframes the check-in around body cues instead of plans:
- an optional pre-meal hunger cue, how hungry are you right now?, offered before the meal
- the plan-adherence question is replaced with a satisfaction reflection, was it satisfying?, answered with yes, kind of, not really, or didn't notice
- the emoji fullness scale is preferred over the 1-to-10 numbers
The dashboard still shows everything
This is the part to hold onto: intuitive eating mode only changes what the patient sees in their app. Your dashboard is untouched. You still get every log, the mood check-ins, fullness, and the full clinical picture. The new cues show up read-only on each meal in the Food Log as Hunger before n/10 and Satisfying?, right alongside everything you would normally see.
Turning on intuitive eating mode does not blind you. Calories, nutrient estimates, plan structure, and every check-in answer remain visible on your side. The switch reshapes the patient's experience; it never reduces what your care team can see.
ED-safety rails
- Default off. Nothing changes for a patient whose care team never opens this card.
- Reversible. Every hidden surface and stored toggle comes back the moment you switch to Structured.
- Clinician-controlled. Only the care team sets a patient's care approach.
- Dashboard-complete. Hiding numbers from the patient never hides them from you.