Promoted by culinary competitions like on TV, many food fans are taking pictures of dishes that they have prepared to become famous or just to show off. Now, researchers at Curtin University in Australia have found that taking isn’t just content for our social media feeds, but could be the key to improving people’s diets. Published in the prestigious American Journal of under the title “Accuracy of energy and nutrient intake estimation versus observed intake using four technology-assisted dietary assessment methods: a randomized crossover feeding study,” the study required the researchers to measure the , which were then provided to participants over a day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Surveillance of what people eat provides vital data on nutrients to inform and programs, they wrote. “The 24-hour dietary recall is currently the most commonly used method in population surveillance because it involves less bias than other dietary assessment methods feasible for large-scale studies. However, a new method asks participants to take photos of their meals using the mobile Food Record app, and then a research dietitian analyzes the photos.
In a controlled feeding study with a crossover design, 152 participants (55% women; mean age 32 years, mean body mass index 26 kg/m2) were randomized to one of three separate feeding days to consume breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with an unobtrusive method of weighing of foods and beverages consumed. The study found the accuracy of th.
