A new research paper shows that an app improved healthy diet in clinical trials, showing that people could benefit from fully automated personal nutritional advice.
People may benefit from automated personal nutritional advice, according to a new study that found an app enhanced healthy diet in clinical trials.
A research paper published today (April 25, 2022) in the Journal of Medical Internet Research 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 received automated personally-tailored nutritional advice increased their healthy diet score by 6% when compared to a control group that received 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, personalized nutrition advice.”
“While having a registered nutritionist or dietitian giving personalized 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 prioritizes 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 personalized nutrition advice or given general healthy eating advice. Those in the personalized 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, whole grains, red and processed meat, with higher points awarded when users have the recommended intake of these. The personalized advice is then targeted to areas of their diet that they would benefit most from changing.
Reference: “Effectiveness of Web-Based Personalized Nutrition Advice for Adults Using the eNutri Web App: Evidence From the EatWellUK Randomized Controlled Trial” by Rodrigo Zenun Franco, Rosalind Fallaize, Michelle Weech, Faustina Hwang and Julie A Lovegrove, 25 April 2022, Journal of Medical Internet Research.
DOI: 10.2196/29088
A big Q is if any app that gamifies healthy eating or nags 2-3x daily will have similar results. Abstracting from a product to a mechanism adds legitimacy.
“…based on UK dietary guidance…”
So, western based diets. What about us on Indian or other Asian diets? I ask because the app is not showing on my Play Store.