Evaluation of a Novel WeChat Applet for Image-Based Dietary Assessment among Pregnant Women in China.

Ye Ding,Chenglin Song,Zhencheng Xie,Zhixu Wang,Tingting Jiang,Xiaolong Lu

doi:10.3390/nu13093158

Abstract

As an important part of antenatal care for pregnant women in China, dietary assessment plays a positive role in maternal and fetal health. Shortcomings in the associated methodologies require improvement. Our purpose was to develop a novel WeChat Applet for image-based dietary assessment (WAIDA) and evaluate its relative validity among pregnant women in China. Data on 251 lunch meals of pregnant women in their second trimester were analyzed. The differences in food weight, energy, and nutrient estimates by the dietary recall or WAIDA method with the weighing method were compared using paired t-tests. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to analyze the correlation between food weight, energy, and nutrient intake obtained from the recall or WAIDA method and those obtained from the weighing method. The Bland–Altman analysis was used to examine the agreement between the recall or WAIDA method and the weighing method for energy and nutrients. Compared with the weighing method, the variation range of food weight, energy and nutrients estimated by the WAIDA method was smaller and more stable than that estimated by the recall method. Compared with the recall method, the correlations suggested a better relationship between the energy and nutrient intakes from the weighing method and those estimated by the WAIDA method (0.752–0.970 vs. 0.480–0.887), which were similar to those of food weight (0.332–0.973 vs. −0.019–0.794). The Bland-Altman analysis showed that the mean differences of the energy and nutrients estimated from the recall method were further away from zero relative to the weighing method compared to the WAIDA method and with numerically wider 95% confidence intervals. The spans between the upper and lower 95% limit of agreement (LOAs) of the energy and nutrients obtained by the WAIDA method were narrower than those obtained by the recall method, and the majority of the data points obtained by the WAIDA method lay between the LOAs, closer to the middle horizontal line. Compared with the recall method, the WAIDA method is consistent with the weighing method, close to the real value of dietary data, and expected to be suitable for dietary assessment in antenatal care.

Highlights

The spans between the upper and lower 95% limit of agreement (LOAs) of the energy and nutrients obtained by the WeChat Applet for image-based dietary assessment (WAIDA) method were narrower than those obtained by the recall method, and the majority of the data points obtained by the WAIDA method lay between the LOAs, closer to the middle horizontal line
Pearson correlation coefficients were used to analyze the correlation between food weight, energy, and nutrient intake obtained from the recall or WAIDA method and those obtained from the weighing method
Comparison and Correlation Analysis between Food Weights Estimated by the Recall or WAIDA Method with the Actual Food Weight

Summary

Introduction

Diet quality plays an important role in the health of pregnant women and can influence fetal development, birth outcomes, and both the early health status and lifelong disease risk in offspring [1,2]. Dietary assessment is an important part of antenatal care for pregnant women in China, which can provide valuable insights into the occurrence of disease and subsequent approaches for prevention and intervention. The weighing food record method is widely accepted as the best method of dietary assessment, and is used as the golden standard to evaluate the relative validity of other dietary assessment methods. This method is quite expensive and has a high respondent burden (including time and manpower), which often leads to low participation rates and high exit rates [3,4,5]

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Discussion

Conclusion