Abstract
A multi-objective formulation of the Menu Planning Problem, which is termed the Multi-objective Menu Planning Problem, is presented herein. Menu planning is of great interest in the health field due to the importance of proper nutrition in today’s society, and particularly, in school canteens. In addition to considering the cost of the meal plan as the classic objective to be minimized, we also introduce a second objective aimed at minimizing the degree of repetition of courses and food groups that a particular meal plan consists of. The motivation behind this particular multi-objective formulation is to offer a meal plan that is not only affordable but also varied and balanced from a nutritional standpoint. The plan is designed for a given number of days and ensures that the specific nutritional requirements of school-age children are satisfied. The main goal of the current work is to demonstrate the multi-objective nature of the said formulation, through a comprehensive experimental assessment carried out over a set of multi-objective evolutionary algorithms applied to different instances. At the same time, we are also interested in validating the multi-objective formulation by performing quantitative and qualitative analyses of the solutions attained when solving it. Computational results show the multi-objective nature of the said formulation, as well as that it allows suitable meal plans to be obtained.
Highlights
Recent findings suggest the importance of fostering healthy nutrition habits in order to improve the quality of life of children [1,2,3]
That configuration achieved the highest mean and median of the hypervolume at the end of the executions, taking into account the 36 different parameterizations of the NSGA - II tested. Similar conclusions to those given for the NSGA - II can be extracted for the Indicator-based Evolutionary Algorithm (IBEA) (Table 5 and Figure 3)
We should note that the best-performing configuration of the IBEA achieved the highest median and mean of the hypervolume, considering the 36 different configurations tested, as was the case with the NSGA - II
Summary
Recent findings suggest the importance of fostering healthy nutrition habits in order to improve the quality of life of children [1,2,3]. The economic crisis in many developed countries has increased the poverty rates of the population, with the ensuing malnutrition problems, which is especially serious when it arises in children It is vital, to have a healthy and balanced diet [7]. By considering general nutritional criteria or recommendations for school-age children, as well as a predefined set of meals, it is possible to correctly formulate the problem of automatically planning school menus. A multi-objective formulation of the MPP, termed MMPP, is described. It considers the cost of the menu and the degree of repetition of courses and food groups of the plan, as the two objective functions to be optimized.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
