Preference, expected burden, and willingness to use digital and traditional methods to assess food and alcohol intake

Höchsmann, C., Fearnbach, N., Dorling, J. , Fazzino, T. L., Myers, C. A., Apolzan, J. W. and Martin, C. K. (2021) Preference, expected burden, and willingness to use digital and traditional methods to assess food and alcohol intake. Nutrients, 13(10), 3340. (doi: 10.3390/nu13103340) (PMID:34684341) (PMCID:PMC8539386)

Abstract

We conducted an online survey to examine the preference, expected burden, and willingness of people to use four different methods of assessing food and alcohol intake such as food/drink record, 24-h recall, Remote Food Photography Method© (RFPM, via SmartIntake® app), and a novel app (PortionSize®) that allows the in-app portion size estimation of foods/drinks by the user. For food (N = 1959) and alcohol (N = 466) intake assessment, 67.3% and 63.3%, respectively, preferred the RFPM/SmartIntake®, 51.9% and 53.4% preferred PortionSize®, 48.0% and 49.3% the food records, and 32.9% and 33.9% the 24-h recalls (difference in preference across all methods was p < 0.001 for food and alcohol intake). Ratings of burden and preference of methods were virtually superimposable, and we found strong correlations between high preference and low expected burden for all methods (all ρ ≥ 0.82; all p < 0.001). Willingness (mean (SD)) to use the RFPM/SmartIntake® (food: 6.6 (2.0); alcohol: 6.4 (2.4)) was greater than PortionSize® (food: 6.0 (2.2); alcohol: 6.0 (2.4); all p < 0.001) and 24-h recalls (food: 6.1 (2.2); alcohol: 5.7 (2.7); p < 0.001), but not different from food records (food: 6.6 (2.0); alcohol: 6.5 (2.3); all p ≥ 0.33). Our results can be used in conjunction with existing data on the reliability and validity of these methods in order to inform the selection of methods for the assessment of food and alcohol intake.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Funding: C.H. is supported by a National Institutes of Health National Research Service Award (T32DK064584) and J.L.D. is supported by the American Heart Association (Grant No. 20POST35210907). This work was partially supported by the National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases grant R01 DK124558 and Louisiana State University LIFT2 grant entitled: “PortionSize: A market-ready app to estimate and manage portion size”. Further, this work was partially supported by NORC Center grant P30 DK072476 entitled “Nutrition and Metabolic Health through the Lifespan” sponsored by NIDDK. This work was also partially supported by grant # U54 GM104940 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, which funds the Louisiana Clinical and Translational Science Center. The funding sources listed above had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; or preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Dorling, Dr James
• Authors: Höchsmann, C., Fearnbach, N., Dorling, J., Fazzino, T. L., Myers, C. A., Apolzan, J. W., and Martin, C. K.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Medicine, Dentistry & Nursing
• Journal Name: Nutrients
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2072-6643
• ISSN (Online): 2072-6643
• Published Online: 24 September 2021
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2021 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Nutrients 13(10): 3340
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License