Google Maps' Calorie-Counting Cupcake Feature Removed Following Backlash

Last week, Google quietly began rolling out a new feature, constructed with what were ostensibly the best of intentions, for its iOS Google Maps application. When a user pulled up a route, the app would display how many calories you'd burn if you chose to walk that route instead of driving or opting for public transport.

That's not all, though—this hypothetical walk was measured in the form of how many mini cupcakes you'd ingest, for the in-app explainer maintained that the "the average person burns 90 calories by walking 1 mile," and an average mini cupcake contains about 110 calories. There was also no way to turn this feature off.

Google didn't exactly invent this idea of clocking calories on a stroll; Citymapper's been doing this for much longer. But the tenor of the reaction to Google's cupcake metric was one of abject displeasure, particularly on Twitter, where pissed users outlined a bevy of problems with the feature.

For one, there's the fact that every person's body is different, and it's therefore foolish to impose a one-size-fits-all philosophy on the diet of the "average" American and how that person's body operates. The feature was accused of "shaming" users for their appetites, in the form of casting judgment on people and their dietary habits. Some users who had suffered from eating disorders in the past or who continue to fight them—which, if we're counting, represents a demographic of upwards of 30 million within the United States—complained that they found the feature "triggering."

Or maybe it was the choice of using mini cupcakes instead of, say, a burger that others found vaguely unsettling. A tiny, sprinkle-bedazzled, hot pink-frosted cupcake is the kind of iconography that's typically gendered as female, thus compounding the feeling that this feature was a well-intentioned, poorly-executed symptom of Silicon Valley's blinkered braggadocio. "Imagine the high-fives when Steve came up with that one," Jezebel's Lauren Evans wrote cheekily.

Following this cascade of criticism, Google eliminated the feature entirely late yesterday. The company told TechCrunch that this decision was in response to "strong user feedback."

While the company reacted swiftly to the outcry, it's hard not to wonder whether more rigorous internal testing across focus groups with broader diversity would have led to this feature seeing the light of day at all.