Evidence-Based Development of a Mobile Telephone Food Record

Abstract

Mobile telephones with an integrated camera can provide a unique mechanism for collecting dietary information that reduces burden on record keepers. Objectives for this study were: (1) to test whether participant's proficiency with the mobile telephone food record (mpFR) improved after training and repeated use, and (2) to measure changes in perceptions regarding use of the mpFR after training and repeated use. Seventy-eight adolescents (26 males, 52 females) ages 11–18 y were recruited to use the mpFR for one or two meals. Proficiency with the mpFR was defined as capturing a useful image for image analysis and self-reported ease of use. Positive changes in perceptions regarding use of the mpFR were assumed to equate to potentially improved proficiency with the mpFR. Participants received instruction for using the mpFR prior to their first meal, and captured an image of their meals before and after eating. Following the first meal, participants took part in an interactive session where they received additional training on capturing images in various snacking situations and responded to questions about user preferences. Changes in the participants' abilities to capture useful images and perceptions about the usability of the mpFR were examined using McNemar, Wilcoxon rank-sum test, and paired t-test. After using the mpFR, the majority of participants (79%) agreed that the software was easy to use. Eleven percent of participants agreed taking images before snacking would be easy. After additional training, the percent increased significantly to 32% (p<.0001). For taking images after snacking, there was also improvement (21% before training and 43% after, p<.0001). Adolescents readily adopt new technologies; however the mpFR design needs to accommodate the lifestyles of its users to ensure useful images and continuous use. Further, these results suggest that additional training in using a new technology may improve the accuracy among users.

A pilot study to determine whether using a lightweight, wearable micro-camera improves dietary assessment accuracy and offers information on macronutrients and eating rate

“…The benefits of this micro-camera device are that it is small and easily worn on the ear, and is therefore non-invasive, whereas other devices are more obvious and onerous to wear P1 27·1 9067 6·17 1·93 6·09 1·99 6·41 2·44 P3 25·1 7544 11·85 3·04 11·85 3·04 0 − P4 22·5 11 188 8·45 6·04 9·20 5·99 2·42 − P6 26·0 13 841 5·03 2·51 5·03 2·51 0 − or carry -for example, use of a mobile phone to capture images or wearing a camera in a box around the neck (32,42) . It captures videos from the viewpoint of the participant using it, of dietary intake episodes that can be used by the researchers to look at many aspects of eating behaviours -for example, rate of chewing and eating speed, order of eating (20) as well as improving the accuracy of dietary recording and assessment.…”

A review of the design and validation of web- and computer-based 24-h dietary recall tools

“…Innovative dietary assessment technologies using devices such as mobile telephones (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8) , sensors, wearable cameras (9)(10)(11) and web-based platforms are common ways of collecting dietary intake data and have become increasingly popular alternatives to traditional pen-and-paper versions of dietary assessment (12) . Web-based methodologies facilitate the collection of dietary intake across many geographic locations (13)(14)(15)(16) and in some cases are preferred by participants compared with the traditional pen-and-paper alternatives (3,17) . Overall the application of technology in dietary intake assessment has been shown to reduce issues associated with traditional collection of dietary data, such as cost, participation rates (by reducing the burden associated with dietary assessment) and accuracy of data collected (18) .…”

Comparison of Known Food Weights with Image-Based Portion-Size Automated Estimation and Adolescents' Self-Reported Portion Size

“…14 An emerging area of research is in the use of images for dietary records 15,16 using small mobile devices with embedded cameras (e.g., mobile telephone). These tools are being designed to identify foods and beverages and their portion sizes accurately through automation.…”