REVIEW ARTICLE


Wearable Devices for Caloric Intake Assessment: State of Art and Future Developments



Maria Laura Magrini1, Clara Minto1, Francesca Lazzarini1, Matteo Martinato2, Dario Gregori1, *
1 Unit of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Public Health, Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
2 Department of Gastroenterology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy


Article Metrics

CrossRef Citations:
7
Total Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 653
Abstract HTML Views: 314
PDF Downloads: 165
ePub Downloads: 108
Total Views/Downloads: 1240
Unique Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 458
Abstract HTML Views: 237
PDF Downloads: 132
ePub Downloads: 86
Total Views/Downloads: 913



Creative Commons License
© 2017 Magrini et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this authors at the Unit of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Public Health, Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, Via Loredan 18, 35121 Padova, Italy; Tel: +390498275384; Fax: +3902700445089; E-mail: dario.gregori@unipd.it


Abstract

Background:

The self-monitoring of caloric intake is becoming necessary as the number of pathologies related to eating increases. New wearable devices may help people to automatically record energy assumed in their meals.

Objective:

The present review collects the released articles about wearable devices or method for automatic caloric assessments.

Method:

A literature research has been performed with PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus and ClinicalTrials.gov search engines, considering released articles regarding applications of wearable devices in eating environment, from 2005 onwards.

Results:

Several tools allow caloric assessment and food registration: wearable devices counting the number of bites ingested by the user, instruments detecting swallows and chewings, methods that analyse food with digital photography. All of them still require more validation and improvement.

Conclusion:

Automatic recording of caloric intake through wearable devices is a promising method to monitor body weight and eating habits in clinical and non-clinical settings, and the research is still going on.

Keywords: Wearable devices, Caloric intake monitoring, Non-communicable diseases, Body Mass Index, Bite, Armband.