Food Talk: A New App for Daily Food Monitoring

This project will pilot test a new app for self-monitoring food intake using natural spoken language (by voice recognition or text) to provide daily estimates of energy and nutrient intakes with a phone app.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Dietary Intake
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: COCO application

Detailed Description

Self-recording food intake is recommended for weight management and healthy eating. However, current methods, including web platforms and apps, are often burdensome leading to short-term use by the consumer. The solution uses cutting-edge speech and language understanding technology to streamline the food logging process. With this technology, the user simply describes what they ate and the system automatically selects the appropriate items and quantities consumed from the USDA food database, which calculates the nutrition profile of the entry.

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Actual): 40

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Massachusetts
    • Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02111
      • Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 65 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Potential subjects will be recruited from the local community around Boston, Massachusetts. Recruitment methods include posting flyers, social and local media advertisements, word of mouth, and emails to HNRCA mailing lists.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Generally healthy men and women 18-65 years if age
• Currently participating in ongoing studies at the HNRCA
• Willing and able to sign written informed consent prior to study entry
• iPhone (iOS 11 or higher) user willing to download the COCO application and record food intake for 5 days

Exclusion Criteria:

• Android or iPhone (iOs 10 or lower) user unable to download and use the COCO application
• Holds a graduate degree in nutrition

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in energy intake using food application COCO	The primary outcome will be to assess whether food capture using the mobile application is comparable with conventional 24-hour dietary recall. This will be done by measuring the energy intake (mean of two days) in the two methods.	Between days 3 and 7 of the study
Change in energy intake using 24 hour dietary recall	The primary outcome will be to assess whether food capture using the mobile application is comparable with conventional 24-hour dietary recall. This will be done by measuring the energy intake (mean of two days) in the two methods.	Between days 3 and 7 of the study

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Accuracy of food capture method using mobile application	The secondary outcome will measure the energy and nutrient content reported by the mobile application over time. Measured energy intake in a subset of participants in another study that provides dietary intake data will be compared to food intake data using the mobile application.	Between days 3 and 7 of the study

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Application feasibility	Feasibility of the use of the application to record dietary intake will be measured through a patient satisfaction questionnaire.	Betweens days 5 and 7

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Tufts University
• Collaborators: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Ogden CL, Carroll MD, Kit BK, Flegal KM. Prevalence of childhood and adult obesity in the United States, 2011-2012. JAMA. 2014 Feb 26;311(8):806-14. doi: 10.1001/jama.2014.732.
• Finkelstein EA, Trogdon JG, Cohen JW, Dietz W. Annual medical spending attributable to obesity: payer-and service-specific estimates. Health Aff (Millwood). 2009 Sep-Oct;28(5):w822-31. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.28.5.w822. Epub 2009 Jul 27.
• Wang Y, Beydoun MA. The obesity epidemic in the United States--gender, age, socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and geographic characteristics: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis. Epidemiol Rev. 2007;29:6-28. doi: 10.1093/epirev/mxm007. Epub 2007 May 17.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): August 1, 2018
• Primary Completion (Actual): June 1, 2019
• Study Completion (Actual): July 1, 2019

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 19, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 8, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): March 11, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): September 13, 2019
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 12, 2019
• Last Verified: September 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Self-report; Voice recognition; Mobile application; 24-hr diet recall
• Other Study ID Numbers: 1234 (Department of Defense)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No