Relative validity of an intelligent ordering system to estimate dietary intake among university students from a medical school in Shanghai, China.

BACKGROUND

Dietary assessment methods have limitations in capturing real-time eating behaviour accurately. Equipped with automated dietary-data-collection capabilities, the "intelligent ordering system" (IOS) has potential applicability in obtaining long-term consecutive, relatively detailed on-campus dietary records among university students with little resource consumption. We investigated (1) the relative validity of IOS-derived nutrient/food intakes compared to those from the 7-day food diary (7DFD); (2) whether including a supplemental food frequency questionnaire (SFFQ) improves IOS accuracy; and (3) sex differences in IOS dietary intake estimation.

METHODS

Medical students (n = 221; age = 22.2 ± 2.4 years; 38.5% male and 61.5% female) completed the 7DFD and SFFQ. During the consecutive 7-day survey period, students weighed and photographed each meal before and after consumption. Then, students reviewed their 3-month diet and completed the SFFQ, which includes eight underprovided school-canteen food items (e.g., dairy, fruits, nuts). Meanwhile, 9385 IOS dietary data entries were collected. We used Spearman coefficients and linear regression models to estimate the associations among the different dietary intake assessment methods. Individual- and group-level agreement was assessed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, cross-classification, and Bland‒Altman analysis.

RESULTS

IOS mean daily energy, protein, fat, and carbohydrate intake estimations were significantly lower (-15-20%) than those of the 7DFD. The correlation coefficients varied from 0.52 (for added sugar) to 0.88 (for soybeans and nuts), with fruits (0.37) and dairy products (0.29) showing weaker correlations. Sixty-two (milk and dairy products) to 97% (soybeans and nuts) of participants were classified into the same or adjacent dietary intake distribution quartile using both methods. The energy and macronutrient intake differences between the IOS + SFFQ and 7DFD groups decreased substantially. The separate fruit intake measurements from each assessment method did not significantly differ from each other (p > 0.05). IOS and IOS + SFFQ regression models generally yielded higher R values for males than for females.

CONCLUSION

Despite estimation differences, the IOS can be reliable for medical student dietary habit assessment. The SFFQ is useful for measuring consumption of foods that are typically unavailable in school cafeterias, improving the overall dietary evaluation accuracy. The IOS assessment was more accurate for males than for females.