CENA - Software for Nutritionanalysis and -consulting

In this research project we develop software, which is supposed to help the user in acquiring healthy eating habits. In contrast to other nutrition software the basic concept to achieve this aim consists of a stepwise procedure starting from the current user habits as to avoid discouraging.

Starting from a “food diary”, recording the type and quantity of meals over several days, and personal information like height, weight, gender, type of job, sporting activities the application assesses the actual supply with the most important nutriments utilizing so-called “supply indices”. These numerical quantities are developed in cooperation with a nutritionist and are issued in a graphical and in table form. Corresponding information texts explain the evaluation result.

From a mathematical point of view the supply indices are fuzzy sets over the range of possible supply quantities of the assessed nutriments. For the evaluation of the food diary a weighted average over the indices is used. The “overall supply index” thus obtained is deployed for the control of the optimisation process. Depending on the input data and taking personal food preferences into account if possible, proposals for the reduction, substitution or supply of specific foods are provided. To support the learning process towards a balanced diet, these proposals are presented in different ways: a comparison of the current and the improved food diary as well as the associated supply indices, information texts concerning the nutriments with the worst supply status or specific diseases each tailored to the requirements of the user. Most of the results can be displayed either as tables or as graphics.

A further development of the software with focus on particular target groups like diabetics or sportsmen is planed.