Evaluation of a mobile application for estimation of food intake

• Autor(a) principal: Bittencourt MESCOLOTO, Samantha
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: CAIVANO, Simone, Martins Álvares DOMENE, Semíramis
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista de Nutrição
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.puc-campinas.edu.br/nutricao/article/view/7833
• topic: Diet; Diet sugens; Nutritional surveillance; Dieta; Inquéritos sobre dieta.; Vigilância nutricional

ObjectiveEvaluate the use of the Nutrabem (São Paulo, Brasil) mobile application as a tool for measurement of food intake among university students. MethodsCross-sectional study of a random sample of 40 undergraduate students at the Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Campus Baixada Santista. Food intake data were estimated using the Nutrabem app and the 24-hour dietary recall. Intakes of energy, carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, calcium, iron, and vitamin C were calculated. The intake of food groups and diet quality were evaluated by the Diet Quality Index associated with the Digital Food Guide. The agreement between the methods was assessed using the Pearson’s correlation coefficient and the Student’ t-test. ResultsStrong correlations were observed between energy (0.77), carbohydrates (0.82) and protein (0.83). The groups: poultry, fish, and eggs; beef and pork; refined grains and breads; and fruits and legumes showed strong correlations (between 0.76 and 0.85). There were moderate correlations (0.59 and 0.71) between the groups sugars and sweets; whole grains, tubers and roots, milk and dairy products, animal fats, and the Diet Quality Index associated with the Digital Food Guide scores. Vegetables and leafy greens, nuts, and vegetable oils showed weak correlations (0.31 and 0.43). Homogeneity assessment revealed similarity between the resultsobtained by both methods (p>0.05). ConclusionThe Nutrabem app can be used as a tool to assess dietary intake among university students since it produces results similar to those obtained by the 24-hour dietary recall method.