Intake Monitoring in Free-Living Conditions: Overview and Lessons we Have Learned

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in AI-driven intake monitoring methods using wearable devices, highlighting their potential for research, dietary assessment, and health policy in real-world conditions.

Contribution

It provides an overview of recent methods using smartwatches and in-ear microphones, evaluating their effectiveness in free-living environments and discussing practical applications.

Findings

Effective intake monitoring in real-world datasets

Potential for improving dietary assessment accuracy

Applications in research and health policy

Abstract

The progress in artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms over the past decade has enabled the development of new methods for the objective measurement of eating, including both the measurement of eating episodes as well as the measurement of in-meal eating behavior. These allow the study of eating behavior outside the laboratory in free-living conditions, without the need for video recordings and laborious manual annotations. In this paper, we present a high-level overview of our recent work on intake monitoring using a smartwatch, as well as methods using an in-ear microphone. We also present evaluation results of these methods in challenging, real-world datasets. Furthermore, we discuss use-cases of such intake monitoring tools for advancing research in eating behavior, for improving dietary monitoring, as well as for developing evidence-based health policies. Our goal is to inform researchers and users of intake monitoring methods regarding (i) the development of new methods based on commercially available devices, (ii) what to expect in terms of effectiveness, and (iii) how these methods can be used in research as well as in practical applications.