Suarez Camila, Adibi Sasan
Department of Food and Health, University of Padova, 35122 Padova, Italy.
School of IT, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia.
Nutrients. 2025 Jun 11;17(12):1978. doi: 10.3390/nu17121978.
Traditional nutritional knowledge, shaped by centuries of cultural and ecological adaptation, offers holistic and sustainable dietary frameworks that remain highly relevant to modern health challenges. However, current digital nutrition platforms often fail to reflect this diversity, relying instead on standardized models with limited cultural sensitivity. This paper aims to explore how traditional nutritional wisdom can be integrated into digital health platforms to promote more inclusive and effective approaches to personalized nutrition. This perspective paper employs a cultural adaptation framework to analyze the integration of traditional food knowledge into digital contexts. Drawing from interdisciplinary research across nutrition science, anthropology, digital health and implementation science, we utilize the Knowledge-to-Action (KTA) Framework and the PEN-3 Cultural Model to structure our analysis. A systematic scoping review of literature published between 2010 and 2025 was conducted to identify integration challenges and opportunities. Additionally, we analyzed case studies of three traditional dietary systems (Argentina, Italy and Japan) and evaluated five leading digital nutrition platforms for their degree of cultural inclusivity, using qualitative comparative methods. The analysis highlights significant challenges in adapting traditional knowledge to digital formats, including standardization barriers, contextual loss and technological limitations. However, successful integration initiatives demonstrate that through participatory design, flexible data architectures and culturally-informed algorithms, traditional food systems can be meaningfully represented. Our proposed four-phase integration framework-documentation, digital adaptation, implementation and evaluation-provides a structured approach for developers and researchers. Bridging traditional nutrition with digital platforms represents a vital opportunity to enhance personalization and preserve food heritage while improving health outcomes for diverse populations. This integration requires interdisciplinary collaboration, user-centered design processes and ethical approaches that respect cultural ownership and context.
历经数百年文化与生态适应所形成的传统营养知识，提供了全面且可持续的饮食框架，这些框架与现代健康挑战仍高度相关。然而，当前的数字营养平台往往未能反映这种多样性，而是依赖文化敏感性有限的标准化模式。本文旨在探讨如何将传统营养智慧融入数字健康平台，以促进更具包容性和有效性的个性化营养方法。这篇观点论文采用文化适应框架来分析传统食物知识在数字环境中的整合。借鉴营养科学、人类学、数字健康和实施科学等跨学科研究成果，我们运用知识到行动（KTA）框架和 PEN - 3 文化模型来构建分析结构。对 2010 年至 2025 年间发表的文献进行了系统的范围综述，以确定整合的挑战与机遇。此外，我们分析了三种传统饮食系统（阿根廷、意大利和日本）的案例研究，并使用定性比较方法评估了五个领先数字营养平台的文化包容程度。分析突出了将传统知识转化为数字形式时面临的重大挑战，包括标准化障碍、情境丢失和技术限制。然而，成功的整合举措表明，通过参与式设计、灵活的数据架构和基于文化的算法，传统食物系统能够得到有意义的呈现。我们提出的四阶段整合框架——记录、数字改编、实施和评估——为开发者和研究人员提供了一种结构化方法。将传统营养与数字平台相连接，是增强个性化、保护食物遗产同时改善不同人群健康结果的重要机遇。这种整合需要跨学科合作、以用户为中心的设计流程以及尊重文化所有权和背景的道德方法。
