The parent's guide to Food Replay
You're the one deciding whether this app enters your home, so this page answers the real questions: does it work, is it safe, will it make screens worse, and what does it actually track?
Does Food Replay actually change eating habits?
The mechanism is honest and simple: kids repeat what feels good, and Food Replay attaches good feelings to noticing food. Logging is instant and warm, variety is celebrated ("five colours in one day!"), and trying a new food is a quest, not a demand. Behaviour research on children's eating consistently points the same direction — repeated low-pressure exposure and positive association beat pressure and restriction. Food Replay automates the low-pressure part.
Just as important is what the app doesn't do. It never counts calories at a child, never labels foods "bad", and never turns a missed vegetable into a failure. Treats are logged honestly and treated matter-of-factly, because teaching a child to hide food from a tracker teaches them to hide food from you.
What you see on your side
Your dashboard speaks adult: "Fiber intake up 12% week over week. Water goal met 5 of 7 days." You can ask why a trend moved, get snack-swap ideas, and read a weekly report that takes two minutes. Data first, encouragement second — and it's written about your child in the third person, never addressed to them.
Will this make screen time worse?
It's designed to do the opposite, and the controls are real:
- You cap play time, not earning. Set arcade windows (say, 4–5pm) and daily minute caps. Logging a meal is never blocked — the healthy habit always stays open even when games are closed.
- Hitting a cap is gentle. The app suggests the comic or tomorrow's quest. There's no rage-quit moment engineered to make a child beg for more.
- Evenings wind down by design. After sunset the app enters nightlight mode: dimmer palette, sleeping hero, no confetti after 8pm. It's an app that helps end the day, not extend it.
- Nothing is engineered for compulsion. No loot boxes, no timers that punish absence, no "your streak dies at midnight!" notifications — a paused streak just waits.
Most of a Food Replay day happens away from the screen: eating, moving, tasting. The app is the scorekeeper, not the activity.
Food Replay's kid experience follows five fixed rules: (1) no guilt language — a child cannot fail at eating; (2) no streak-loss threats — missed days pause a streak, never break it; (3) no sibling comparisons — every child competes only with their own goals; (4) no red, ever — warning colours are absent from the kid app, including form errors; (5) rewards can't be weaponised — Sparks are never bought, never expire, and cannot be removed by anyone, parents included.
First principle of the design system: "Never shame. Always invite."
One app, the whole family
Add every child once; each gets their own hero, their own goals and their own age-appropriate targets. Profile switching lives behind a grown-up lock, and the family leaderboard measures each person against their own goals — a 6-year-old and a 12-year-old can both top the board in the same week. Parents play too, if you're brave enough.
Which devices does Food Replay run on?
Food Replay runs on iPhone and iPad (iOS 16+) and Android phones and Android tablets (Android 10+). The iPad and Android tablet layouts are designed from scratch — a wide navigation rail, landscape-optimised panels, and a dual-pane parent dashboard that shows your family list and a child's detail side by side. A shared family tablet works beautifully; sign into the same account across any devices.
What does it cost?
Food Replay is free to download and free to try. A single family subscription covers every child and unlocks all worlds, games and comics. There are no in-app purchases aimed at children, no ads, and no way to buy Sparks — the store literally does not exist. Current local pricing is always shown in the app stores. Pricing questions, answered →
Safety, in one breath
COPPA & GDPR-K aligned. Parent consent gates everything. No ads to kids, no data selling, no social features outside your own family, photos processed for recognition and not used to train on your child. The long version, in plain language, lives on its own page.
Read Safety & PrivacyStart your hero's journey
Set up the whole family in about five minutes — the kid part of onboarding is the fun part.
Made for familiesNo ads to kidsSparks can't be boughtParents control play timeCOPPA & GDPR-K aligned