Article archive / September 2020
Originally published: . Volume 11, No. 9. Source pages: 1, 8.
Pennington psychologist, Dr. Corby Martin, has launched his new smartphone app and the device promises to make it easier for users to count calories correctly, according to news from Pennington Biomedical. By using food photos taken with their smartphones, individuals can get an accurate view of their macro nutrients and better calculate their intake.
Drs. Martin and John Apolzan are Co-principal Investigators of a four-year, $1.8 million, National Institutes of Health study that will test their app against the current “gold-standard” calorie-consumption measures, noted the press release.
“One of the keys to successful weight management or weight loss is making sure you are eating the correct amount of food. More often than not, people underestimate how much they have really eaten," said Dr. Martin, Professor and Director, Ingestive Behavior Lab.
Dr. Martin's lab conducts interventions to improve food intake, exercise, and body weight. Martin’s research interests include the application of technology to change people’s behavior and improve health through mobile health interventions. The Ingestive Behavior Lab is composed of psychologists, behaviorists, and nutritionist professionals, including Registered Dietitian Nutritionists. The lab specializes in the measurement of energy intake and energy balance and the utilization of this information to help people change their diet and exercise habits to improve their health and manage body weight.
Martin is an expert at quantifying energy intake in controlled and free-living conditions, and has developed and validated the "Remote Food Photography Method" and SmartIntake® smartphone app.
Martin and colleagues have created and validated mathematical models to accurately predict body mass as well as weight change in response to dieting and or overfeeding. Martin also studies the "compensatory effects of perturbing energy balance, including the effect of exercise on subsequent food intake and changes in activity and metabolism."
Health psychology is an expanding area in psychology. Dr. Martin previously explained to the Times, “Health psychology continues to become more involved in the medical arena. Health psychologists play important roles in bariatric surgery centers, cancer centers, and other settings where chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and hypertension, are treated.”
The new app, PortionSize™, analyzes pictures of users’ meals and lets them know how many calories they have eaten. The app helps offset what the National Institutes of Health refer to as “portion distortion,” giving consumers a more accurate gauge of calorie consumption, reported Pennington News.
“Portions – the amount of food in a meal or snack – have increased greatly over the past two-plus decades,” said John Apolzan, PhD, Assistant Professor and Director, Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism Laboratory. “What people now consider a normal portion is generally too much for an individual."
For example, 20 years ago, the average cheeseburger contained 333 calories. A blueberry muffin weighed 1.5 ounces and contained 210 calories.
Today the average cheeseburger is 590 calories while the typical blueberry muffin weighs in at 5 ounces and 500 calories.
The app is not yet available commercially, but it is available for licensing. Contact Leslie Smith at Pennington: leslie.smith@pbrc.edu
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