Business Black Box

How will you burn your lunch?
Darlene Rodillo wants to
know. As founder of Blaze
Health, Rodillo wants to
change the conversation around food and
exercise to one more focused on a positive
approach to personal energy usage.
“We’re really focused on obesity, as
it’s related to pretty much every other
chronic condition out there,” Rodillo
says. And while there are many apps
and services that help track food or
activity out there, many boil down
to a conversation about calories—
a measurement that evades many of
us on our quest for healthy foods and
fit bodies.
“What is available is clearly not
addressing the need,” Rodillo says,
“Obesity is growing year over year. And
it leads to a lot of other problems.
While tracking does work, Rodillo
notes, it’s a pain to do and many are
turned off of the system over time. But
through Blaze Health, Rodillo hopes to
change the center focus of health and
diet tracking from the calorie to an easier
method—one that could be as simple as
taking a photograph of your plate.
“It’s really more to get a food landscape
of what you’re eating,” she says. “Being
able to see something visually helps you
see where you’re falling off the plan.”
By partnering this system with one that
takes into consideration what activities
you already do, (walk the dog, go to the
gym, play basketball), the app (and future
web portal) can take an active approach
to balancing food and activities.
For example, that apple may fit in with
with your plan. That cookie, however,
might trigger a kickback: “How long
will you be playing basketball tonight?”
While Rodillo continues raising
funds to push Blaze Health into
development, she continues to draw the
correlation between what we eat and
how active we should be.
“It’s all about looking at food and
how foods translate to activities,” she
says. “We want to start creating better
habits, and find ways to do that.”
61