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Emerging trends of technology-based dietary assessment: a perspective study

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 75, pages 582–587 (2021)Cite this article

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Among the issues that threaten human health, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) remain a leading concern. Much of the increase in NCDs results from preventable risk factors, with alcohol use and an unhealthy diet among the top four [1]. Thus, identifying the influences of different dietary factors (such as food and alcohol/beverage consumption) on health is an urgent matter. Over the years, nutrition researchers have developed several classical methods of dietary assessment to advance nutritional knowledge, such as the food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), food records, 24-h-dietary recall (24-HDR), dietary history, and brief dietary assessment instruments or screeners [2]. Most of these methods rely on participants’ self-reports and are always paper-based [3]. As technology advances, innovative dietary assessment tools such as software-, sensor-, or image-based approaches have shown positive trends with respect to application in both academia and industry, to enhance or even replace conventional approaches [4, 5]. This article offers a brief introduction to technology-based dietary assessment, especially methods with a shift in focus from subjective to objective indicators. We provide a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities brought about by technology-based approaches to the diet-related research field.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, researchers began epidemiological investigation of the relationships between diet and disease [2]. One important key to uncovering a causal link between disease and diet is the precise assessment of dietary intake [6]. Hence, the measurement of food intake has been well investigated; however, limitations remain [7, 8].

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the grant from the Cyrus Tang Foundation (419600-11102), with additional grants from the China Medical Board (CMB) Collaborating Program (15-216 and 12-108).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chronic Disease Research Institute, Children’s Hospital, and National Clinical Research Center for Child Health, School of Public Health, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

    Xueyin Zhao, Xiaochen Xu, Yang Yang & Shankuan Zhu

  2. Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

    Xueyin Zhao, Xiaochen Xu, Yang Yang & Shankuan Zhu

  3. Emory University, Emory College of Arts and Science, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Xiuyan Li

  4. Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, John Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Xi He

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Correspondence to Shankuan Zhu.

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Zhao, X., Xu, X., Li, X. et al. Emerging trends of technology-based dietary assessment: a perspective study. Eur J Clin Nutr 75, 582–587 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-020-00779-0

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