Matching Items (2)
Description
Problem: Overweight and obesity are global issues. There are several strategies for weight loss and maintenance as well as general lifestyle change for overall better health. The goal is to find an easy and convenient way for people to track their food intake, either for personal use and improvement, or to be used by professionals such as registered dietitians to gather data and help improve diet. Currently food journals, food frequency questionnaires and 24-hour recall are methods that are used by registered dietitians to get an idea of what is general diet is like from their patients or clients. It was proposed that pictures taken of the meal with a phone could be used as a method of recording food intake. It would be quick and extremely easy on the client; then everything from portion size, to type of food and toppings could be analyzed quickly and conveniently. If effective it could also give rise to the ability for foods to be analyzed immediately with the text or email of the picture. Methods: subjects already participating in a separate study where they were instructed to take pictures of their meals for a difference purpose were recruited. There recorded diet intake with phone pictures were able to be used from seven subjects. Subjects took a snapshot of their meals for 3 separate days and also logged on and completed a 24 hour recall with the ASA website. The pictures were analyzed and food intake, based off the pictures was entered in the program Food Processor to generate a nutritional report. The results from the ASA 24 hour recall, based on what the subject entered, were compared to the nutritional report, generated based on review of the pictures. Nutrient values that were compared include: total energy intake (calories), protein, carbohydrates, fat, vitamin C, calcium and fiber. This was done to test if the pictures could be used as a valid source. Results: It was found that there were several problems with using the pictures as a method of analyzing food intake. Out of the seven subjects the result of only one subject was close between the two methods. All other results of calculated nutrient intake varied significantly and it did not prove to be effective to use pictures to analyze food intake. Conclusions: food intake recorded by picture method may prove to be useful in the future, however there would need to be greater compliance and training on picturing food that can be accurately analyzed. Short written explanation of food type and cooking method etc. would be most beneficial to include with actual picture. Pictures of food intake may be useful in other professional areas but as of now are not useful to generate nutritional reports.
ContributorsLouden, Karina Arianne (Author) / Johnston, Carol (Thesis director) / Morse, Lisa (Committee member) / Appel, Christy (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Nutrition and Health Promotion (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
With the influence of the Western Diet, obesity has become a rising problem in the country today. Western Diet is characterized by the overconsumption of processed food that is low in nutritional values and high in saturated fats. Study showed that every two out of three adults in the United States are either overweight or obese. Being obese increase the risk of many other disease such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and insulin resistance. Besides being a great health concern, obesity is also cause a great financial burden. Many efforts have been made to understand the defense against obesity and weight loss. The goal of this study was to understand the characterization of food intake and weight gain responses when imposed on a high-fat diet (HFD) using rats. It was predicted that weight gain would be dependent on energy intake and it would have a significant effect on adiposity compared to energy intake. Data showed that energy intake had high significance with adiposity whereas weight gain showed no significance. Also for the rats that were on HFD, the obesity-prone (OP) rats exhibited a great amount of weight gain and energy intake while the obesity-resistance (OR) rats showed a similar weight gain to the controlled group on low-fat diet (LFD) despite being hyperphagic. This suggests that OR is characterized by equal weight gain despite hyperphagia but this alone cannot explain the boy defense against obesity. More research is needed with a larger sample size to understand weight gain responses in order to fight against the epidemic of obesity.
ContributorsMao, Samuel (Author) / Herman, Richard (Thesis director) / Baluch, Page (Committee member) / Lamb, Timothy (Committee member) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05