Nutritional Assessment of Hospital Meals by Food-Recording Applications

Mobile food records are currently used to determine the nutrition of healthy subjects. To determine the accuracy of such records, we evaluated the nutritional composition of a test meal (noodles and fruit juice) and a hospital meal (Japanese set meal) using two types of mobile food records. Eighteen healthy subjects (2 males and 16 females) were enrolled. Using these diets and validated nutrient-composition information, we evaluated the accuracy of the dietary assessments made by two dietary-record applications, Asken(®) and Calomeal(®), over 5 days. For the test meal, the values provided by the two applications were close to the actual values. In contrast, for the hospital meal, the values provided by the two applications were approximately 1.5 times higher than the actual values. A linear-mixed-model analysis showed that the total energy, carbohydrate, and salt contents were significantly overestimated in the hospital meal. Protein also tended to be overestimated, while the fat content was not significantly overestimated. Furthermore, the total energy and fat contents increased significantly over time. No association with age was observed. A comparison of the coefficients of variation (CVs) for each nutrient in the hospital meal indicated that the fat levels were significantly higher than those in the test meal. In conclusion, the accuracy of mobile food records depends on the type of meal. Our data will provide lessons for the use of meal-recording applications in special cases, such as hospital food.