simplifying mobile phone food diaries
TRANSCRIPT
Simplifying Mobile Phone
Food Diaries
Design and Evaluation of a Food Index-Based Nutrition Diary
Adrienne Andrew, Gaetano Borriello, James FogartyDUB Group
Computer Science & EngineeringUniversity of Washington
Target Users: Healthy Adults
● Not trying to:
– Lose weight
– Control diabetes
– Treat hypertension
● Disease prevention, not treatment
● Medium level of motivation
– Interested in high-level monitoring of
food intake
Design Goals
● Flexibility
– Different people have different goals
● Reduce database interaction
● Combine a lightweight, overview and detailed, database approach
● Nutritionally rigorous
Healthy Eating Index (HEI-
2005)● A way of “grading” a diet of a
population
● 12 components
– 8 food groups
– 4 nutrients
● Attainment vs. Moderation
● Reflects USDA Dietary Guidelines
POND: A Pattern-Oriented
Nutrition Diary
Evaluating the use of Food Diaries
In Lab
● Define foods for users to enter
● Can compare user actions to “ground truth”
● Con: Food might not be familiar
In situ
● More realistic
● Food familiarity
● Con: Researchers are unable to evaluate how correct the records are
24 participants in the lab
22 participants continued in the field (3 weeks)
Research Goals
● How do participants use POND in the lab?
● How do participants think they will use POND in situ?
● Eventually:
– How does use in the lab compare to
use in situ?
Procedure
● Participants shown a card with a food task
● Asked to “enter the food as they felt comfortable”
– As completely and
correctly as possible.
● 20 tasks
● 4 conditions
B3
Plain Bagel, Enriched, Toasted1 item(s) (3.5 in. diameter)
Cream Cheese4 tablespoon(s)
STARBUCKS Tall Nonfat Caffe Latte12 fluid ounce(s)
SMALL: 2 Components
MEDIUM: 5 Components
BIG: 9 Components
FULL: All Components
Four Conditions
Results
● Entry strategy
● Search terms
Results
● Entry strategy
● Search terms
● How people suggested they would use POND in situ
Result: Entry Strategy
● For each task:
– Counted the number of foods entered
via +1 or lookup
– Characterized it as:
• +1 Only: Each food in the task was
entered with +1 buttons.
• Lookup Only: Each food in the task was
looked up in the database.
• Mixed: Some foods entered with +1,
some looked up in the database.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Nu
mb
er
of
Task
s
Participant
Strategy for task entry Lookup Only
Mixed
+1 Only
Result: Entry Strategy
10 people used an overview strategy
9 people used an opportunistic strategy
5 people used a primarily detailed lookup strategy
Result: Search Terms
Search Term Number of Uses
Doritos 11
Baking chocolate 10
Egg 9
Wheat thins 9
Fiber one 9
Pepperoni 9
Starbucks 8
Mashed potatoes 8
Wheat crackers 8
Don miguel 8
Le gout 8
Salad 8
Milk 8
Conclusion
● We built a food diary that combined an overview and detail approach to nutrition tracking.
– Many people find traditional database-
driven food diaries too difficult to sustain.
– Users took advantage of the flexibility.
● Participants suggested how they would use POND in situ.
– In future work, we analyze and report how
they actually used it.
Thanks!
Adrienne H. Andrew
ARO, Inc.
This work was supported in part by
Nokia Research Palo Alto and by the
National Science Foundation under award OAI-1028195