XYZ IEEE International Conference
JomImage SnapFudo: Control Your Food in a Snap
Student Name
Faculty of Business &
Information Science
UCSI University
Malaysia
student@gmail.com
JosephNg, P.S.
Faculty of Business &
Information Science
UCSI University
Malaysia
josephng@ucsiuniversity.edu.my
Abstract - Tracking calorie of food consumed is becoming harder
when eating outside. With many choices of fast food available,
the consumption of fast food is high among Malaysian. In 2014,
WHO also has reported that, “Malaysia is the fattest country in
South East Asia”. Nowadays, there are many calorie tracking
application available in store to help on weight loss. However,
these applications may not be sustainable, as it requires many
inputs for food logging. This study has proposed to improve the
healthy eating habit and promote weight loss through mobile
applications for android. This study will involve image
recognition of food to minimize the food logging. From the
survey resulted, most respondents are aware about their
number of BMI but find a difficulty to track their calorie intake
when dining out. The opinion concluded from interview, it is
hard to know each ingredient and how much the chef put in their
meals served. Thus, mobile application come out with the
solution of image recognition and minimal design to ease the
burden of inputs requirements that most calorie tracking
application are struggling now. As the result, the implemented
application can give knowledge to user on how to lose weight
healthily and motivate them to achieve their weight goals.
Keywords: calorie, diet, healthy diet, weight loss, obesity,
overweight, Malaysia, image recognition, image classification, fat
loss, dietary habits
I. INTRODUCTION
When eating outside, people tend to choose food in their
convenient. Besides, fast food restaurants are available
everywhere with a cheaper price offered. As time goes, the
consumption of fast food could be is higher. In Malaysia, the
consumption of fast food among young Malays is high [1].
Lack of exercise could also promote them to be fat. [2]
mention that the high consumption of restaurant food can
affect the obesity level to be increased. Currently, there are
more than 70% population over the world are categorized as
overweight or obese [3]. In 2014, WHO also has reported that
“Malaysia is the fattest country in South East Asia” [4].
Based on Malaysian National Health and Morbidity Survey
in 2012, there are 33.3% people are pre-obese and 27.2% are
categorized obese [1]. Due to overweight and obesity disease,
2.8 million population are dying per year [5]. People who
have obesity have higher probability to have variation of
disease such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure,
hypertension, high lipids, cardiovascular disease, and type-2
diabetes [3][5].
978-1-7281-4082-7 /19/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE
Moderator
Faculty of Business &
Information Science
UCSI University
Malaysia
abc@ucsiuniversity.edu.my
Proof Reader
Faculty of Business &
Information Science
UCSI University
Malaysia
xyz@ucsiuniversity.edu.my
Besides health problem, overweight and obesity could affect
the job performance. Obese people have potential of higher
score of productivity loss compared to those people who have
normal BMI [6]. However, most people who are obese tend
to eat unhealthy food which has very high calorie [7]. It
would be difficult to change the habit once it is engrained [8].
As an impact, controlling the appetite on eating unhealthy
food might be hard to resist due to unhealthy eating habit.
Meanwhile, obesity could be controlled and treated with
defined four determinants such as: [5]
a)
Primary appetite control’s level,
b)
The potency of dietary habits,
c)
Physical activity level, and
d)
Psychological ambivalence level
Appetite level could be reflected by how the human eat and
how much do they consume [9]. High level of fat mass could
awaken the hormone which control appetite to be appears [9].
It will lead people to overeating and gain more weight.
However, dietary plan with user’s self-control can facilitate
them to contribute successful diet and prevent overeating
[10]. Thus, a balanced calorie and nutrition level could affect
people to maintain and lose their weight.
Controlling the calorie intake is also very important to
achieve the weight loss. Normally, the approximation of
calorie intake for male adults is around 2500 calories while
2000 calories for female adults [5]. However, tracking all
records of food intake might be troublesome especially for
busy people. Mobile application has come with its
convenience to track on user’s calorie intake. It is proven that
mobile applications can impact people’s habits on healthy
diet [11].
Smartphone now become a must have item in people’s
lifestyle. Approximately, there are 72% smartphone common
users in Malaysia [12]. My Fitness Pal (MFP) is the most
popular mobile application from US to help tracking food and
calorie intake [13]. This application can be also used for
eating disorder. Research found only 14 out of 78 people have
been tested said that the application did not help on
contributing their eating disorder [14].
There are also other similar mobile applications such as
Lifesum and Fat Secret. To elaborate the comparison of these
applications, the table of comparison is illustrated below.
Table 1: Feature comparison in current mobile applications
Fat
Features
MFP Lifesum
Secret
Food Logging
/
/
/
Scan Barcode
/
/
/
Calorie Goals
/
/
/
Food Diary
/
/
/
Location (Restaurant
This paper aims to answer the research objective via the
research question in Table 2.
Table 2 : Research Questions
RQ1: What effect could mobile applications
approach on healthy food intake of the students and
staffs in university?
RQ2: What type of food that people should eat to
lose weight when they dine out in university area?
RQ3: How to encourage people to use mobile
applications to track calorie intake without many user
inputs required?
RQ4: How the technology could encourage people
in university environment to eat healthy food and keep
them motivated achieve their weight loss?
There are 4 research questions determined to examine the
value creations. To reduce the scope area, the investigation
will be conducted in UCSI university only. Each research
question will be answered by each research objective in the
Table 3.
Table 3 : Research Objective
/
X
X
Recipes
/
/
/
Water intake
/
/
X
Nutrition chart
/
X
/
Diet Progression
/
/
/
R02: To recommend healthy food available within all
restaurant around UCSI University.
Meal recommendation
X
X
X
R03: To minimize user’s action by adding image
recognition in the program for inputting data.
nearby)
The table 1 shows all applications has food input and
calorie tracking as their main features. However, those
applications require many user inputs through searching food
from the database and approximate the serving size which is
very tedious [3]. [14] mentioned that many people dislike
using calorie counter to promote weight loss as it requires
many input and measurement. Hence, those applications will
not be sustainable due to consistent input required from users.
Thus, user can be demotivated when they update their
tracking whenever they log their food. However, those data
are important to process output from the program to user.
User input with just-in-time food recording might help
reducing the problem of food logging [3].
Problem Statement, Question & Objective
With all features provided in the app, user could keep in
track on what food they have consumed. Thus, the awareness
of taking care of their body could be stimulated so that they
can achieve their weight goals and healthy body.
R01: To encourage people achieve their weight goal
and healthy body among staff and student in UCSI
University with mobile application.
R04: To develop a mobile application that encourage
people in UCSI University to eat healthily.
Based from Table 3, this study is aimed to develop a mobile
application that could encourage people to lose weight and
achieve their healthy lifestyle even though with food served in
restaurant.
R01: To encourage people achieve their weight goal and
healthy body, mobile application will come out as a platform
to facilitate user on their diet. It could give more convenient
for people whenever and wherever they are.
R02: To recommend healthy food available within all
restaurant around UCSI University. This recommendation
could give choice of food for user and aims to persuade them
to choose low calorie food over tasty food.
R03: To minimize user’s action by adding image recognition
in the program for inputting data could promote people to log
their food easier with less effort. User could input their food
without burden typing and searching name of food they are
looking for.
R04: To develop a mobile application that encourage people
in UCSI University to eat healthily. With all features provided
in the app, user could keep in track on what food they have
consumed.
From the objectives derived, these are hypotheses for each
point of it and summarized in figure 1 below.
II. METHODOLOGY
This study will apply mixed method to answer how and
why questions from the target audience more effectively.
Survey and interview will be occur during the data collection.
The data is to be collected via the following methodology as
summarized in Table below.
Table 4 : Research Methodology [15-16]
Figure 1: Hypothesis Research Model
H1: The control of calorie will bring people’s BMI level into
normal.
Calorie have the most important roles in achieving the
healthy weight. Deficit calorie is important in weight loss
while surplus calorie is important in weight gain. For
instance, to lose weight, the calorie consumed within a day
must not exceed the TDEE number. No matter how healthy
the food is eaten, if it exceeds the recommended calorie
intake of how much body needed, it will give effect on gain
weight. Having normal BMI level could promote a healthy
body. Moreover, it will prevent many diseases like obese and
overweight could.
Research
Dimension
Explanatory Sequential Design
Research
Methodology
Mixed Mode
Research Methods
Comparative Analysis
Based on table 4, the research dimension will be explained
in the sequential design that will explain each step on data
collection. Mixed mode or mixed method is applied by doing
random survey and interview as its primary data collection.
To elaborate of the steps of data collection, the sequential
design will illustrate as shown in figure 2.
H2: Food Recommendation will improve consumption of
healthy food in UCSI University.
The recommendation of healthy food available could give
option for user. By recommend healthy food along with the
calories contained provided, user will tend to choose the
healthy food recommended by the system rather than
following their instinct of what is tastier which is mostly not
healthy for diet.
H3: Image recognition will help to reduce data input required
for the apps.
By taking picture of food that is going to be consumed, user
could input the food without typing one by one of the
ingredients. This would be more efficient and save time
which inpact user to be more motivated on their diet.
Moreover, there is no reason to postpone their diet plan
because of the troublesome of data input using calorie
tracking app.
H4: Calorie tracking apps will help people to achieve their
weight goals.
With all features provided in the app, user could keep in
track on what food they have consumed. On the other hand,
with the convenience of smartphone, user can use the app
whenever they go by only one click. Thus, the awareness of
taking care of their body could be stimulated so that they can
achieve their weight goals and healthy body.
Value Creations
With all features provided in the app, user could keep in
track on what food they have consumed. Thus, the awareness
of taking care of their body could be stimulated so that they
can achieve their weight goals and healthy body.
Figure 2: Sequential Design [17-19]
Doing survey as the quantitative data collection, the
generalized information will be gathered. The survey will be
done by randomly choose people in UCSI University. After
the generalized explanatory analysis is identified, it will be
followed with the qualitative data collection which is
interview. The interview will be done by questioning people
who are on diet and eat healthily as the part of their habit.
From the interview, the depth analysis and reasoning behind
the quantitative research will be accumulated. Finally, all the
information will be characterized and concluded together to
meet one conclusion as shown in Table 2.
Table 2: RO/RQ vs Data Collection Mapping
RQ
RO
Survey
Interview
Questions
Questions
Preliminary data collection is conducted first beforehand
to test if the questionnaires are understandable for the
respondents. There are 5 respondents for survey and 3
respondents for interview. Small changes of survey and
interview questions is occurred due to there are some
irrelevant answers from the respondents. In the actual data
collection, there are 31 respondents for survey and 7 people
asked for interview. For survey, random people was selected
around UCSI University to fill in the questionnaire. Besides,
people who are on diet and trying to achieve healthy lifestyle
are asked for interview about their opinion about calorie intake
and how mobile apps can take a role in weight loss.
are eating out at restaurant. Because it is difficult to know
what ingredients and seasoning the chef used in the meals
they served. Further, most restaurants are focus more on taste
than the healthiness of their food.
Reason why tracking calorie of food
outside is difficult
12%
63%
25%
Portion
size
Taste
III. RESULTS AND FINDINGS
According out of the research have been found, the
awareness of BMI in UCSI University is high in both
preliminary and technical data collection. The figure 3 below
summarize the responses.
Post-test: awareness on BMI
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
12
10
6
2
1
Very Not
Aware
Not
Aware
Neutral
Aware
Very
Aware
Figure 3: Post-Test Results of Awareness of BMI
As illustrated in figure 3, most respondents are aware about
BMI and their weight. This statement could support
encouraging people to achieve their weight goal and healthy
body with a mobile app. The Figure 4 below summarize the
responses from survey regarding about cause of obesity.
Post-test: Cause of Obesity
Other
Activity Level
Stress/Psychology
Eating Habits
Food/Calorie
0
5
10
15
20
Figure 4: Post-Test Result of the cause of obesity
15 out of 31 people vote for food or calorie as the most
impactful cause for obesity. Based from interview resulted,
all respondents are agreed that calorie takes the most
important role in diet because it could determine how much
the energy used and consumed from the food eaten. However,
it is difficult to track calorie of food served in the most
restaurant. From survey result, 55% people (15 out of 31)
have a difficulty on controlling their calorie intake while they
Figure 5: Post-Test Result of the reason why tracking
calorie of food outside is difficult
Figure 5 conclude that 5 out of 7 respondents from
interview think that because of ingredients used, it is hard to
count how many calories contained in the certain food. On
the other side, most restaurant tend to cook their meals to be
tastier rather than healthier in order to approach more
customers to eat their food. Thus, it is also hard to determine
the exact number of calories contained.
Besides, all respondents agreed that healthy food
recommendation could promote weight loss if the nutritional
information of food is provided and give many choices for
user. Thus, user can compare the nutrients of each food and
make decision of what should they eat.
The application of image recognition in the mobile
application for food logging have the positive feedback from
the respondents. There are 40% (12 out of 31) respondents
prefer image and 57% (17 out of 31) respondents prefer both
image and text based for food logging embedded in the
application.
The interview’s respondents also have a positive feedback
of mobile application as a calorie tracker because of its
convenience. With application, user can get notification as
the reminder and no reason for them to not track their food
since they have phone and the application with them. In
addition, the application could give knowledge to the people
who are new in diet and lead them to achieve their goals.
The application of image recognition in the mobile app for
food logging have the positive feedback from the
respondents. There are 40% respondents prefer image and
57% respondents prefer both image and text based for food
logging embedded in the app.
The interview’s respondents also gave positive feedback
about mobile app as a calorie tracker because of its
convenience. With app, user can get notification as the
reminder and no reason for them to not track their food since
they have phone and the app with them. In addition, the app
could give knowledge to the people who are new in diet and
lead them to achieve their goals.
From the feedback from data collected, the product
solution has been implemented with 3 types user include
admin, shop owner, and general user. The app has been
implemented and recognize the food captured on camera. The
Figure 6 below illustrates the app’s home screen.
food details screen, user can input how many serving of food
they have eaten and let them log into their food diary.
Afterwards, the system will perform the calculation and bring
the user back to the home screen as shown previously in the
Figure 6.
Beside image recognition, another main feature of the app
is food recommendation. The Figure 8 below will show the
function on developed app.
Figure 6: Home Screen of the app
The Figure 6 displays the home screen where the user can
log their food and track the calorie. This home screen is
displayed for the first time when user successfully logged in
to the app. The right view in the Figure 6 shows the food has
been successfully logged when the user logs their food. The
app automatically calculates the calorie that user has eaten
within a day.
In the bottom navigation menu, there are three menus for
user to select such as home, camera, and account. The camera
menu will show new activity where user can access the
camera to log their food. The image recognition is working in
this activity which is shown in the Figure 7.
Figure 7: Real-time image recognition on developed app
Figure 7 above shows that the app recognized the image
captured as sweet and sour and results it in the new screen
together with its calorie and shop in which the food is sold.
As this dish commonly found in many shops in the UCSI, the
result has many foods listed. After user click to the one of the
items listed, they will be brought to the food details. From the
Figure 8: Food recommendation of the app
As illustrated in the Figure 8, the food recommendation is
based on the meal category include breakfast, lunch, dinner,
snack and drink. This app will calculate the suggested calorie
for user in each meal. There is 25% of total calorie for
breakfast, 30% for lunch, 35% for dinner, and 10% of total
snack and drink. This percentage is the basic and
recommended amount of calorie for each meal per day. The
illustrated result is the food recommendation for breakfast.
The food listed is sorted from the lowest to the highest calorie
with the information details displayed in each item.
Therefore, user will tend to choose lower calorie food for
their meal.
Another menu which is account page is where the user can
personalize their data such as weight, height, or their name.
This activity also allows them to see the weight loss
progression and BMI indicator. With the chart and indicator
displayed, user will be more aware of their weight and keen
to achieve the target weight they have indicated.
In Figure 9, the progress bar shows how far the target
weight that user want to achieve from their starting point.
Below the chart, there are 2 buttons to update their weight
and height. The system also shows the BMI value and in
which category is the user.
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[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
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Figure 9: Account Page of the app
After few users tested the app, with these features included
in the calorie tracking app developed, the process of tracking
calorie is more enjoyable and motivate user to keep tracking
their calorie intake. The calorie tracker works well like
another calorie tracking app in the market. All features
developed successfully without error occurred.
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
IV. CONCLUSION, LIMITATION AND FUTURE WORKS
In conclusion, the implementation of mobile application as
a medium for calorie tracking can encourage people to
achieve their weight goal and healthy body. The
implementation of image recognition in the application as
another way to log food could minimize user input and step
of food logging. Besides, food recommendation can control
the calorie intake and support weight loss easily. The feature
is achieve by determining the calorie intake recommended for
the user and showing the resulted food based on its calorie
and macronutrient value.
Although this application itself could motivate user to
achieve their weight goals and healthy body, the impact can
be visible from the user’s own action and consistency. If
many users were to participate to use this application and
successfully achieved their healthy body, Malaysia can be
better and healthier nation. However, it might take time to
compare the significant difference of each person different
metabolism. The future study might be enlarged the scope of
food available and add more option of vegetarian and halal
food.
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