Abstract
Individualized meal planning is a nutrition counseling strategy that focuses on improving food behavior changes. In the sports setting, the number of experts who are sports dietitians or nutritionists (SD/SN) is small in number, and yet the demand for creating meal planning for a vast number of athletes often cannot be met. Although some food recommender system had been proposed to provide healthy menu planning for the general population, no similar solution focused on the athlete's needs. In this study, the iDietScoreTM architecture was proposed to give athletes and active individuals virtual individualized meal planning based on their profile, includes energy and macronutrients requirement, sports category, age group, training cycles, training time and individual food preferences. Knowledge acquisition on the expert domain (the SN) was conducted prior to the system design through a semi-structured interview to understand meal planning activities' workflow. The architecture comprises: (1) iDietScoreTM web for SN/SD, (2) mobile application for athletes and active individuals and (3) expert system. SN/SD used the iDietScoreTM web to develop a meal plan and initiate the compilation meal plan database for further use in the expert system. The user used iDietScoreTM mobile app to receive the virtual individualized meal plan. An inference-based expert system was applied in the current study to generate the meal plan recommendation and meal reconstruction for the user. Further research is necessary to evaluate the prototype's usability by the target user (athletes and active individuals).
Highlights
Athletes need adequate energy and nutrition as fuel to sustain their long training hours and maintain their health [1]
Considering the fact that advanced technology may be used to assist people in improving health, the current study proposed an architecture design of iDietScoreTM, a system that provides virtual meal plans based on athlete's or active individual's profiles and expert's suggestion
The current expert system aims to provide a virtual meal plan based on nutrition needs, training plan, training time, and food preferences for athletes and active individuals
Summary
Athletes need adequate energy and nutrition as fuel to sustain their long training hours and maintain their health [1]. Low energy intake among athletes may lead to several health consequences such as loss of muscle mass; menstrual dysfunction; loss of or failure to gain bone density; an increased risk of fatigue, injury, and illness; and a prolonged recovery process [1]. This condition may affect an athlete's carrier, performance and health. Considering the fact that advanced technology may be used to assist people in improving health, the current study proposed an architecture design of iDietScoreTM, a system that provides virtual meal plans based on athlete's or active individual's profiles (include food preference) and expert's suggestion.
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
