AI-powered calorie tracking apps can estimate a meal's nutritional content from a single photograph. The technology offers a fast and convenient alternative to manually entering every food and portion, but new research suggests the results may be considerably lower than what is actually on the plate.
In a test of four photo-based apps, researchers found that calorie and fat estimates were about one-third too low on average.
Photo-based calorie tracking relies on AI image recognition to identify the foods shown in a picture and estimate the size of each portion. The app then compares those estimates with nutrition databases to calculate calories and other nutrients.
"Photo-based calorie tracking apps are very popular, especially for people trying to manage their health or lose weight," said Aaron Hengist, a postdoctoral visiting fellow with the Intramural Program of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of the National Institutes of Health. "However, the accuracy of many of these apps has not been thoroughly evaluated. Our study helps address this question by looking at whether these apps can reliably estimate calories."
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