RESUMO
Although digital photos have the potential to improve the precision of reported portions in dietary assessment, there are few studies investigating its accuracy in comparison to printed photos. The aim of this study was to evaluate the perception of adults in quantifying food portion sizes using printed and digital photos, displayed on computer-screens and tablets. In total, 1165 evaluations were performed for 60 photos of portion sizes in Brazil. Each participant (n = 58) attended two sessions in the study center, with an interval of at least one week. In each session, twelve food portions were prepared and randomly evaluated by each participant in its printed and digital forms. The mean error (difference between the estimated and true portions) was not significantly different between the printed photos (2.1 g ± 47.2) and the digital ones (-6.4 g ± 53.7). The agreement on using the printed and digital photos was 91% and 90%, respectively. Furthermore, the use of the tablet was more prone to underestimation when compared to printed and computer-screen photos (p < 0.001). Overall, participants did not present major difficulties in perceiving the portion sizes using the printed and digital photos, but the use of tablets led to less accurate results, indicating that this needs to be further evaluated.
Assuntos
Rotulagem de Alimentos , Alimentos , Tamanho da Porção , Percepção de Tamanho , Adolescente , Adulto , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Avaliação Nutricional , Fotografação , Pilotos , Adulto JovemRESUMO
AIM: The present study aimed to validate food records on the application MyFitnessPal (MFP), comparing them with paper-based food records (P-FR). METHODS: Thirty university students, including males and females, volunteered and recorded dietary intakes on P-FR and MFP food records (MFP-FR). The values of energy, macronutrients and fibre from MFP-FR were compared with data from P-FR, calculated using Brazilian food composition tables. Adjustments for in-person variability and energy intake were performed, and comparisons were made between each data set, using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, Spearman's correlation and Bland-Altman agreement plots. RESULTS: Positive moderate correlations between P-FR and MFP-FR for all variables, and non-significant associations for energy and fibre were found. The Bland-Altman plots showed tendency to underestimation and relatively narrow limits of agreement. Carbohydrate and lipids show trends of increasing the degree of overestimation with increased intake, even after data normalisation. CONCLUSIONS: MFP tends to underestimate ingestion of nutrients probably due to inadequacies in the MFP database. However, MFP showed good relative validity, especially for energy and fibre. Its use, as well as other similar applications, should be encouraged, due to ease of assessing dietary information, although careful usage is recommended because of database gaps.