1. Are you aware of any promising funding opportunities in this area, or opportunities for a volunteer researcher to get involved?
2. Do you see any room for longer-term personal food tracking strategies in measuring dietary change? For example, having a group of test subjects use an app like MyFitnessPal to track their food consumption for a few weeks, undergo an intervention, then track their consumption for a few more weeks? (Or, heck, find a population of people who already track food in MyFitnessPal and run the experiment on them directly.)
This is more prone to bias and mistakes than, say, tracking a supermarket loyalty card, but could also allow more comprehensive collection. I’d also guess that MyFitnessPal would be easier to work with than a supermarket chain being asked to share data with financial implications, but I’m not too confident about that.
1. I don’t know of any existing funding opportunities, although I’d say more research with non-self-reported dietary outcomes would be worthwhile and volunteer researchers with the appropriate skills could certainly be involved there. Volunteers with connections at colleges, universities, restaurants or grocery stores could also be valuable for building collaborations. There may also be as-of-yet undiscovered allies in advocating for transparency in the food system, perhaps among groups fighting obesity or generally supporting public health.
2. I did some research on personal food tracking, specifically food diaries where people track their consumption. I think reactivity is the most significant problem: keeping a food diary in itself has been demonstrated as an effective weight loss strategy (p6 Thompson and Subar 2013). That said, keeping a food diary could be interesting to explore as an intervention of its own right. For measurement, however, there has been less validation work on food diaries, likely because they are so onerus to participants, causing noncompliance and dropout. Using an existing population tracking their diets would be prone to selection bias since participants are likely already health conscious. Recording photos of food, rather than written diaries, is also being explored and may mitigate reactivity by requiring less work from participants, although subsequently analyzing the photos may prove challenging. (“Pledging a meat-free month: An experience sampling study with smartphones” https://researchfund.animalcharityevaluators.org/funded-projects/)
A couple of questions:
1. Are you aware of any promising funding opportunities in this area, or opportunities for a volunteer researcher to get involved?
2. Do you see any room for longer-term personal food tracking strategies in measuring dietary change? For example, having a group of test subjects use an app like MyFitnessPal to track their food consumption for a few weeks, undergo an intervention, then track their consumption for a few more weeks? (Or, heck, find a population of people who already track food in MyFitnessPal and run the experiment on them directly.)
This is more prone to bias and mistakes than, say, tracking a supermarket loyalty card, but could also allow more comprehensive collection. I’d also guess that MyFitnessPal would be easier to work with than a supermarket chain being asked to share data with financial implications, but I’m not too confident about that.
Thank you for your thoughtful questions, Aaron!
1. I don’t know of any existing funding opportunities, although I’d say more research with non-self-reported dietary outcomes would be worthwhile and volunteer researchers with the appropriate skills could certainly be involved there. Volunteers with connections at colleges, universities, restaurants or grocery stores could also be valuable for building collaborations. There may also be as-of-yet undiscovered allies in advocating for transparency in the food system, perhaps among groups fighting obesity or generally supporting public health.
2. I did some research on personal food tracking, specifically food diaries where people track their consumption. I think reactivity is the most significant problem: keeping a food diary in itself has been demonstrated as an effective weight loss strategy (p6 Thompson and Subar 2013). That said, keeping a food diary could be interesting to explore as an intervention of its own right. For measurement, however, there has been less validation work on food diaries, likely because they are so onerus to participants, causing noncompliance and dropout. Using an existing population tracking their diets would be prone to selection bias since participants are likely already health conscious. Recording photos of food, rather than written diaries, is also being explored and may mitigate reactivity by requiring less work from participants, although subsequently analyzing the photos may prove challenging. (“Pledging a meat-free month: An experience sampling study with smartphones” https://researchfund.animalcharityevaluators.org/funded-projects/)