Raphael Thys
New Curtin University research suggests that snapping pictures of food may not just be for our social media feeds but could actually help improve people’s diets.
The study involved measuring the weight of meals provided to participants for breakfast, lunch, and dinner over the course of a day. Participants then compared various technology-assisted methods for recalling their food intake over the past 24 hours.
The research involved a method where participants used a mobile Food Record app to take photos of their meals, which a research dietitian then analyzed.
The study revealed that the group who took photos of their meals had a significantly higher accuracy of nutritional intake compared to those who relied on memory. Clare Whitton, the first author and a PhD candidate, noted that this study, which is the largest of its kind to utilize the mobile Food Record app, could potentially revolutionize how we gather information about the population’s dietary habits.
“Accurate, reliable data about what the population is eating is key to supporting people to optimize their health,” Ms. Whitton said. “People can struggle to remember what they have eaten, but this study shows dietary assessment can be accurate – particularly when you take the burden away from the person when you ask them to take a photo of what they ate.”
The research involved the analysis of food photos by experts, but now efforts are being made to make the process more efficient. The team is working with Purdue University in the US to implement artificial intelligence for automatic food analysis.
Lead researcher and co-creator of the mobile Food Record App, Professor Deborah Kerr, expressed enthusiasm for this development in gaining a comprehensive understanding of people’s dietary habits.
“It makes it a lot simpler for people to track what they consume when they only have to take photos for the day,” Professor Kerr said. “This will become even easier as we start to fully automate the analysis of the foods in the photos. With advances in AI technology, this may be just around the corner.”
Professor Kerr believes that technology could help capture more accurate data on people’s dietary habits and provide personalized dietary advice. “This research shows the benefit of images; that’s the pathway we’re going down to get an accurate picture of what people are eating.”
Journal reference:
- Clare Whitton, Clare E Collins, Barbara A Mullan, Megan E Rollo, Satvinder S Dhaliwa, Richard Norman, Carol J Boushey, Edward J Del, Fengqing Zhu, Tracy A McCaffrey, Sharon I Kirkpatrick, Christina M Pollard, Janelle D Healy, Amira Hassan, Shivangi Garg, Paul Atyeo, Syed Aqif Mukhtar, Deborah A Kerr. Accuracy of energy and nutrient intake estimation versus observed intake using 4 technology-assisted dietary assessment methods: a randomized crossover feeding study. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2024; DOI: 10.1016/j.ajcnut.2024.04.030