Estimation of dietary intakes by digital images: Potential and limitation

Accurate measurement of dietary exposure is a prerequisite for understanding the relation between daily dietary intake and health effects. Dieticians and the researchers have long been striving for accuracy and simplicity in dietary measurement methods. Along with recent advance in technologies, there is an increasing popularity of using digital camera to obtain dietary intake data from target individuals. Particularly, handheld personal digital assistants with attachments of a digital camera and mobile phone card are drawing attention. This article covers strengths and problems related to the estimation of dietary consumption using digital images. In addition, the authors also proposed the potential possibility of developing camera phone as an alternative tool of dietary assessment in future clinical and research practice since camera phone will certainly become a very popular appliance in our daily life. However, whether these techniques can accurately estimate dietary intake requires a series of investigations beginning with the validation, reliability, and practicality in comparison with the conventional dietary assessment methods. Further, the effect of age on the ability to operate the electronic instruments should be considered and needs to be examined in variant age cohorts.