FoodScan: Food Monitoring App by Scanning the Groceries Receipts

Abstract

In the mobile device market there is a large number of applications to help people monitor intake or provide suggestions to lose weight and manage a healthy diet. However, the vast majority of these apps consume a lot of time by having to introduce food one by one. This paper presents the work to develop and pilot test a new Android application, FoodScan, aimed at people over 70, specially those from rural environments or with limited technical knowledge, to manage their food from the items that appear on their grocery receipts, avoiding the obligation to introduce one by one those foods, and generating recommendations. To achieve this final objective, specific objectives have been completed as indicated in the methods section. We conducted a review of current calorie control applications to learn about their weaknesses and strengths. Different algorithms were tested to expedite the introduction of food into the application and the most suitable for the FoodScan application was selected. Likewise, several options were taken into account to create the knowledge base of food, taking into account dietary recommendations for people over 70 years. Once developed, a pilot evaluation was carried out with a convenience sample of 109 volunteers in rural areas of Caceres and Valladolid (Spain) and Alentejo (Portugal). They tested FoodScan for a month after which they completed a user satisfaction survey. 93 % (101/109) believed that the app was easy to download and install, 66 % (72/109) thought that it was easy to use, 47 % (51/109) noted that the charts with the recommendations helped them with diet control and 49 % (53/109) indicated that FoodScan helped them improve healthy eating habits. One-month pilot evaluation data suggested that most users found the app somewhat helpful for monitoring food intake, easy to download and easy to use.