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Have you ever used a food diary to make healthy eating choices or to lose weight? We know that keeping a food diary helps us stay more accountable to our health plan, but we would surely be happier if we could make do without having to use cumbersome traditional paper-based food diaries.
Mobile apps that act as food journals could very well be your knight-in-shining-armor. These days there are numerous available apps once downloaded to your mobile that can serve as online food diaries. Some that even allow pictures of foods to be taken and sent to a dietitian partnered with the mobile app. But, how reliable are these apps?
According to a recently published study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, a new mobile telephone food record has been successfully tested. The study set out to test how much easier would it be for adolescents to capture a useful image of their food and what is their ease of using a mobile telephone food record, in general and after training. The adolescents in this study, aged 11-18 years, used their cell phones to capture an image of their meals (including snacks) before and after eating.
Current problems with food recall especially among youngsters include estimating how much one ate and drank and being able to compare it to the suggested portion sizes. Catherine McCarroll, Registered Dietitian and Coordinated Program Director, Division of Nutrition at Georgia State University says, “from my experience working with both healthy weight adolescents and above average weight adolescents, it is difficult to obtain accurate food records with this age group. Parents are not a reliable source of information since adolescents typically are not with their parents for one or more meal and snacks per day.”
According to the study, a majority of the adolescents (79%) found the mobile telephone food record easy to use and the longer they used it, the more likely they were to continue using it. Training the adolescents to use the food record on their cell phones made them more agreeable to take images of the food before snacking.
The authors of the study suggest that successfully testing the mobile telephone dietary food record is valuable not only to adolescents and to others, but also benefits health care professionals such as Registered Dietitians. The study lends valuable information to the further development of the mobile telephone food record. Dr. Mildred Cody, PhD, RD, Professor Emeritus, Division of Nutrition, Georgia State University says, “use of a familiar mobile, multi-purpose technology that can take pictures of the food and record other notes, such as information on where the food is consumed and other information relevant to the individual's situation, has potential to improve both record-keeping compliance and diet recall detail.”
While the mobile telephone food record is further being developed, such studies lend support to a user-friendly food record soon within our reach. At the end of the day, adolescents are more likely to accept tools that fit into their lifestyles. When it comes to staying in shape, technology is helpful and interactive products more acceptable. As Evelyn Leo, Diabetes Educator and Registered Dietitian summarizes, “using a phone camera to take pictures of foods may improve accuracy of food recalls for a population accustomed to using technology in their everyday lives.”
What’s in it for you?
Not only youngsters, but as a consumer you stand to gain from using a mobile telephone food record because:
- It is easy to use. You need not be tech-savvy
- It will literally be available at your finger tips
- It is reliable having undergone successful testing
- A pictorial food diary would most likely be preferred over using a paper-based food diary
- Frequently using it after undergoing training will make you more efficient in recording your food intake
- You will be able to send valuable dietary information and receive feedback from your dietitian
- You will be a true eco-friendly citizen saving paper otherwise used for paper-based food diaries!
Mobile telephone food records seem promising. We might soon joyfully bid adieu to keeping old-fashioned food diaries.
About the author: Nida Shaikh, MS, RD, LD
A self-confessed chocoholic, outdoor enthusiast, half-marathon distance runner and an ambidextrous Registered Dietitian currently pursuing a doctoral degree in nutrition at Emory University.
Reference: Six BL, Schap TE, Zhu FM, Mariappam A, Bosch M, Delp EJ, Ebert DS, Kerr DA, Boushey CJ. Evidence-based development of a mobile telephone food record. J Am Diet Assoc. 2010 Jan;110(1):74-9.
How interesting! I like the visual format of your article. Clear and easy to follow. The use of bullet points made it easy to scan, remember, and return to the points above that supported the bullets. Wish I had thought of this idea.
ReplyDeleteThe Repetitive book background made it a little hard for me to focus on reading the article. As far as the article is concerned, it was well written out and was short enough to keep my attention span.
ReplyDeleteThe content was thought provoking to me. Especially since I was once an overweight teen and can see both pros and cons.
Nida,
ReplyDeletevery interesting post. When I think of weight watchers and how one tracks their food intake, they are able to attach a 'point' value to foods they eat, and hence know by the total points what their calorie limit for the day would be. This made me question how people could actually keep track of their calorie intake through this?
Visual props/pictures are good, but I didn't see mentioned anywhere if these apps somehow are able to attach a calorie value to these items and somehow track how many calories they would be allowed to consume in order to maintain/lose weight?
-Rita Wakim
I've used two different mobile apps for logging my food. I wonder about the accuracy of the information in those apps. I'm confused by this app. So I take a picture and send it to a dietian? I don't have a dietian and if I did I don't need an app to send her a picture. However, this made me realize how a food diary app could help improve the completeness and accuracy of food logs for study participants. That is a great idea.
ReplyDeleteLike the other commenters, I think this is a really interesting idea, and I'm also curious about the details of how the app works. Were the pictures sent to a dietitian or research team? Or were they used to help the kids be mindful and aware of what they were eating without considering metrics? (Both would be useful). Also, thinking as a researcher, this could be a really great tool to explore issues of food deserts / nutrition landscapes. Really thought provoking -- thanks!
ReplyDeleteI’m intrigued by the notion of this type of app – and for adolescents who are constantly texting and never far from their phones, this seems like a great thing. But, I’m confused how this type of app works. Does someone take the photos (before eating and after) and then assess the nutritional value of what the person ate?
ReplyDeleteEarly in your post, you mentioned “reliability” of the apps yet the study appears to have looked more at “ease of use” – and these can be 2 very different things. So for me, the verdict is still out … seems like it’s easy to use but is it reliable?
(P.S. I loved that you cited your photo – people often forget to do that!)
- Moose Alperin
(CMPH Chair; BSHE faculty)
I like the use of an app as a tool for food-intake awareness. It's interesting to think about what creating some type of social networking site where people would post their snacks/meals and get feedback from others on what they ate. I wonder how that would/would not function like weight watchers in terms of social support or creating social norms around eating healthy foods.
ReplyDeleteOverall this was a very lay friendly blog: easy to read and engaging. : )
Last, it is nice to know that a dietician is a chocoholic! : )
I've always found the idea of food diaries to be controversial. I have no doubt that using an app to keep track of the food that one consumes is effective, especially among young adults. I wonder though why there is no mention to food apps being used for unhealthy purposes? You mention how the app can be used to help people that are overweight control their consumption, but I would imagine that there are some people struggling with anorexia, especially technologically savvy adolescents, that will use these apps as well. Is that at all a concern?
ReplyDeleteTamara Mason, MPH, CHES (Teach For America colleague & friend of Dr. Freedman & current RSPH staff member)
ReplyDeleteI also thought the ideas presented in the article were thought provoking in terms of using a mobile food diary. I also wondered about the utility of such an app for the every day person who may be interested in monitoring their food intake/weight but they don't employ the services of a dietician--in that case where would the pictures of their food & the food diary info be sent then? It would also be great if the study was replicated with older adults who may not be as tech savvy as teenagers to determine the success of such an app for that population.
In terms of the blog posting though, it was short and to the point and clearly described the study that was reviewed. It was also very easy for lay audiences to understand. Lastly, I really like the idea of using a mobile app with teenagers because that truly demonstrates the public health idea of meeting populations where they are (i.e. tech savvy youngsters :0)) to improve or change their behavior.
I thought this blog was very easy to read and I appreciated your introduction of an i-phone app that is useful and has the potential to be adopted by a large population.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the app, I'm chronically bad at keeping a journal for anything, so I can absolutely see the utility in an i-phone app that would do this for me.
Besides individual use, was there any mention of using the food-diary app for large research studies on diet and health?