Cargando…

Development of a Web-App for the Ecological Momentary Assessment of Dietary Habits among College Students: The HEALTHY-UNICT Project

The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a critical period for the development of healthy behaviors. Yet, it is often characterized by unhealthy food choices. Considering the current pandemic scenario, it is also essential to assess the effects of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) on lifestyl...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Barchitta, Martina, Maugeri, Andrea, Favara, Giuliana, Magnano San Lio, Roberta, Riela, Paolo Marco, Guarnera, Luca, Battiato, Sebastiano, Agodi, Antonella
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8779738/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35057511
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu14020330
_version_ 1784637651040600064
author Barchitta, Martina
Maugeri, Andrea
Favara, Giuliana
Magnano San Lio, Roberta
Riela, Paolo Marco
Guarnera, Luca
Battiato, Sebastiano
Agodi, Antonella
author_facet Barchitta, Martina
Maugeri, Andrea
Favara, Giuliana
Magnano San Lio, Roberta
Riela, Paolo Marco
Guarnera, Luca
Battiato, Sebastiano
Agodi, Antonella
author_sort Barchitta, Martina
collection PubMed
description The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a critical period for the development of healthy behaviors. Yet, it is often characterized by unhealthy food choices. Considering the current pandemic scenario, it is also essential to assess the effects of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) on lifestyles and diet, especially among young people. However, the assessment of dietary habits and their determinants is a complex issue that requires innovative approaches and tools, such as those based on the ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Here, we describe the first phases of the “HEALTHY-UNICT” project, which aimed to develop and validate a web-app for the EMA of dietary data among students from the University of Catania, Italy. The pilot study included 138 students (mean age 24 years, SD = 4.2; 75.4% women), who used the web-app for a week before filling out a food frequency questionnaire with validation purposes. Dietary data obtained through the two tools showed moderate correlations, with the lowest value for butter and margarine and the highest for pizza (Spearman’s correlation coefficients of 0.202 and 0.699, respectively). According to the cross-classification analysis, the percentage of students classified into the same quartile ranged from 36.9% for vegetable oil to 58.1% for pizza. In line with these findings, the weighted-kappa values ranged from 0.15 for vegetable oil to 0.67 for pizza, and most food categories showed values above 0.4. This web-app showed good usability among students, assessed through a 19-item usability scale. Moreover, the web-app also had the potential to evaluate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ behaviors and emotions, showing a moderate impact on sedentary activities, level of stress, and depression. These findings, although interesting, might be confirmed by the next phases of the HEALTHY-UNICT project, which aims to characterize lifestyles, dietary habits, and their relationship with anthropometric measures and emotions in a larger sample of students.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8779738
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-87797382022-01-22 Development of a Web-App for the Ecological Momentary Assessment of Dietary Habits among College Students: The HEALTHY-UNICT Project Barchitta, Martina Maugeri, Andrea Favara, Giuliana Magnano San Lio, Roberta Riela, Paolo Marco Guarnera, Luca Battiato, Sebastiano Agodi, Antonella Nutrients Article The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a critical period for the development of healthy behaviors. Yet, it is often characterized by unhealthy food choices. Considering the current pandemic scenario, it is also essential to assess the effects of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) on lifestyles and diet, especially among young people. However, the assessment of dietary habits and their determinants is a complex issue that requires innovative approaches and tools, such as those based on the ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Here, we describe the first phases of the “HEALTHY-UNICT” project, which aimed to develop and validate a web-app for the EMA of dietary data among students from the University of Catania, Italy. The pilot study included 138 students (mean age 24 years, SD = 4.2; 75.4% women), who used the web-app for a week before filling out a food frequency questionnaire with validation purposes. Dietary data obtained through the two tools showed moderate correlations, with the lowest value for butter and margarine and the highest for pizza (Spearman’s correlation coefficients of 0.202 and 0.699, respectively). According to the cross-classification analysis, the percentage of students classified into the same quartile ranged from 36.9% for vegetable oil to 58.1% for pizza. In line with these findings, the weighted-kappa values ranged from 0.15 for vegetable oil to 0.67 for pizza, and most food categories showed values above 0.4. This web-app showed good usability among students, assessed through a 19-item usability scale. Moreover, the web-app also had the potential to evaluate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ behaviors and emotions, showing a moderate impact on sedentary activities, level of stress, and depression. These findings, although interesting, might be confirmed by the next phases of the HEALTHY-UNICT project, which aims to characterize lifestyles, dietary habits, and their relationship with anthropometric measures and emotions in a larger sample of students. MDPI 2022-01-13 /pmc/articles/PMC8779738/ /pubmed/35057511 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu14020330 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Barchitta, Martina
Maugeri, Andrea
Favara, Giuliana
Magnano San Lio, Roberta
Riela, Paolo Marco
Guarnera, Luca
Battiato, Sebastiano
Agodi, Antonella
Development of a Web-App for the Ecological Momentary Assessment of Dietary Habits among College Students: The HEALTHY-UNICT Project
title Development of a Web-App for the Ecological Momentary Assessment of Dietary Habits among College Students: The HEALTHY-UNICT Project
title_full Development of a Web-App for the Ecological Momentary Assessment of Dietary Habits among College Students: The HEALTHY-UNICT Project
title_fullStr Development of a Web-App for the Ecological Momentary Assessment of Dietary Habits among College Students: The HEALTHY-UNICT Project
title_full_unstemmed Development of a Web-App for the Ecological Momentary Assessment of Dietary Habits among College Students: The HEALTHY-UNICT Project
title_short Development of a Web-App for the Ecological Momentary Assessment of Dietary Habits among College Students: The HEALTHY-UNICT Project
title_sort development of a web-app for the ecological momentary assessment of dietary habits among college students: the healthy-unict project
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8779738/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35057511
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu14020330
work_keys_str_mv AT barchittamartina developmentofawebappfortheecologicalmomentaryassessmentofdietaryhabitsamongcollegestudentsthehealthyunictproject
AT maugeriandrea developmentofawebappfortheecologicalmomentaryassessmentofdietaryhabitsamongcollegestudentsthehealthyunictproject
AT favaragiuliana developmentofawebappfortheecologicalmomentaryassessmentofdietaryhabitsamongcollegestudentsthehealthyunictproject
AT magnanosanlioroberta developmentofawebappfortheecologicalmomentaryassessmentofdietaryhabitsamongcollegestudentsthehealthyunictproject
AT rielapaolomarco developmentofawebappfortheecologicalmomentaryassessmentofdietaryhabitsamongcollegestudentsthehealthyunictproject
AT guarneraluca developmentofawebappfortheecologicalmomentaryassessmentofdietaryhabitsamongcollegestudentsthehealthyunictproject
AT battiatosebastiano developmentofawebappfortheecologicalmomentaryassessmentofdietaryhabitsamongcollegestudentsthehealthyunictproject
AT agodiantonella developmentofawebappfortheecologicalmomentaryassessmentofdietaryhabitsamongcollegestudentsthehealthyunictproject