Hyderabad-based NIN launches app that promotes healthy and sustainable food choices
According to the developers, the mobile app is a tool that helps users to reflect on their own eating habits and enables them to transform their personal behaviour and food environment
Hyderabad: In a groundbreaking initiative aimed at properly guiding individuals in their journey to achieve a healthy and sustainable nutrition, the researchers at Hyderabad-based National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) have collaborated with their German counterparts to develop a mobile app NutriAIDE, which was launched on Thursday.
The mobile app does more than just count calories. According to the developers, which include Prof. Markus Keck, Chair, Urban Climate Resilience, Augsburg University, Germany and NIN principal investigator Dr. SubbaRao M Gavaravarapu, the mobile app is a tool that helps users to reflect on their own eating habits and enables them to transform their personal behaviour and food environment.
“It also involves an AI based photo recognition tool that can identify the likely foods one is consuming by just clicking a picture of the food for intake assessment. In addition, the app enables to keep track of micro and macronutrient content and also dynamically calculates the carbon footprint of food choices of an individual,” the researchers said.
The mobile app, which is an outcome of an ongoing collaborative research project titled “NutriAIDE- Building smart food environments for improved nutrition”, provides users with information based in three unique functions i.e. Maps, Move and Mind.
The Map function enables users to locate and tag food vendors with an intention to provide other users adequate food information about the types of food items being sold in their immediate food environment while the Move function helps in connecting with other existing users, apart from keeping a count steps. It also users to manually enter their water intake and sleep cycle to keep a track of it while the Mind function gives users an overview of the nutrient intake and integrate with C02 values.
In the initial phase the app has been piloted on a sample of 720 in Hyderabad city, entering its second phase, in which the positive effects of the NutriAIDE app on users’ food choices and nutrition will be assessed.
The app will serve users as a powerful tool to measure and transform their personal food practices. It seeks to provide an engaging experience with an opportunity to ‘Mind’ what they eat, ‘Move’ to ensure adequate physical activity and ‘Map’ their food environments and rate them,” Dr. Hemalatha R, Director, ICMR-NIN and co-ordinator of the project on the Indian side after she unveiled the app, said.
Developed in an Indo-German collaboration with leading institutes including the ICMR- National Institute of Nutrition (India), University of Augsburg, the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbrücke, and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, Energy, and Chandigarh based start-up Calvry Wellness Solutions Pvt Ltd, NutriAIDE aims to investigate and address crucial aspects of food practices and nutrition-related decision-making.
The research team comprises Human Geographers, Health Communicationists, Neuropsychologists, Sustainability Scientists, Nutritionists and Public Health Researchers. It is completely developed in India with a technology partner – a start-up based out of Chandigarh.
The team lead from Germany, Prof. Markus Keck, Human Geographer and Chair of Urban Climate Resilience at the Augsburg Center for Climate Resilience said “This project is an opportunity to do truly transformative science that will make a lasting contribution to improving food choices and nutrition in India. It is a pleasure to see this project growing with all the valuable contributions from my dear partners! By leveraging cutting-edge technology and scientific research, the team aims to improve the way individuals approach nutrition by following a holistic approach.”
ICMR-NIN principal investigator Dr. SubbaRao M Gavaravarapu elaborates: “At the ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition, we firmly believe that nutrition and health communication can bring about sustainable behaviour change only if individual, interpersonal, community and policy level changes are achieved. The app intends to empower and inform the users not only about the nutritional aspects of their foods but also the factors that shape their food environments” explains Dr. Gavaravarapu and is hopeful that “when people start to understand what is on their plate, how nutritious it is and how sustainable it is they are likely to explore healthier options both for themselves and the planet and thus it would herald a change in the food environments.”
Sustainability scientist and principal investigator of the Wuppertal Institute, Lena Hennes, explains that “the way we eat substantially influences our individual health status, our quality of life and our well-being. The food environment is a crucial influence on our personal diet and therefore requires greater attention…”
“NurtiAIDE is an amazing and innovative platform to take care of Individuals to the whole community. The larger objective is to build the sustainable future for generations. Our vision is to create awareness not only for health, but to the society by offering a simple tool to understand our responsibilities towards ourselves as well as the community.” says Vineet Singh, CEO of Calvry.
The launch of the NutriAIDE app marks an important step toward understanding food choices and attempting to transform the food and nutritional landscape in India. With the collective knowledge and expertise of renowned institutes, NutriAIDE is poised to foster sustainable food practices and drive positive change.
For more details visit: nutriaide.org
