Automated nutrition app can help people follow healthier diet

Date:
April 25, 2022
Source:
University of Reading
Summary:
People could benefit from fully automated personal nutritional
advice, as a new research paper shows that an app improved healthy
diet in clinical trials.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== People could benefit from fully automated personal nutritional advice,
as a new research paper shows that an app improved healthy diet in
clinical trials.


==========================================================================
A paper published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research today
(Mon 25 April 22) shows how the eNutri app developed by researchers
in human nutrition and biomedical engineering at the University of
Reading helped people to eat more healthily. Participants who were given automated personalised nutrition advice improved their healthy diet
score by 6% compared to a control group who were given general healthy
eating guidance.

Dr Roz Fallaize, Dietitian and Research Fellow at the University of
Reading's Department of Food and Nutritional Science said: "The research demonstrates that the eNutri technology is effective in helping users
to improve their healthy food intake, with a significant improvement
in diet quality for the group who had access to automated, personalised nutrition advice." "While having a registered nutritionist or dietitian
giving personalised dietary advice is ideal, this is often only available
to those with health concerns or with the financial resource to pay. There
is also growing interest in nutrition apps and web services, but many commercial apps tend to focus on weight loss or calorie counting rather
than healthy eating." "Nutritional advice should always be focused on
healthy, balanced diets and positive relationships with food, and I'm
pleased that our study helped people eat better. One exciting aspect
of the eNutri system is the potential to offer it to lots of people at low-cost" Dr Rodrigo Zenun Franco, a PhD graduate from the University of Reading and lead author of the paper said: "The eNutri app prioritises
healthy eating based on evidence and uniquely uses a diet scoring system
to provide food-based advice that is tailored to the individual user."
"We are continuing to develop eNutri to suit specific population
groups including those with heart conditions and hope to make this
available to the public in the future" People were either assigned to
receive personalised nutrition advice or given general healthy eating
advice. Those in the personalised group then had their diets scored
according to 11 criteria based on UK dietary guidance. The eNutri app
gave an automated assessment of diet quality giving the user a 'healthy
diet score' out of 100.

The 'healthy diet score' includes assessments of intake of fruit,
vegetables, wholegrains, red and processed meat, with higher points
awarded when users have the recommended intake of these. The personalised advice is then targeted to areas of their diet which they would benefit
most from changing.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Reading. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Rodrigo Zenun Franco, Rosalind Fallaize, Michelle Weech, Faustina
Hwang,
Julie A Lovegrove. Effectiveness of Web-Based Personalized
Nutrition Advice for Adults Using the eNutri Web App: Evidence
From the EatWellUK Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Medical
Internet Research, 2022; 24 (4): e29088 DOI: 10.2196/29088 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220425121115.htm

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