The effectiveness of android-based application for adolescents in estimating food portion size

Gadgets are now an important part of daily activities, including among adolescents. This technology allows effective information sharing, making it an alternative to nutrition education. Nutrition education regarding portion size is expected to change adolescents’ feeding behavior. The use of conventional media such as food models and leaflets (paper-based media) suffer from many weaknesses in terms of size, weight, price and practicality. This study compared the effects of an android-based application “GIZIKU (My Nutrition)” to the one on the food model and leaflet on adolescents’ ability to estimate the portion. There were 64 adolescents with normal body-mass index from 5 junior high schools who participated in this intervention. Their skills in estimating the portion size (in portion estimation ratio/PER) were measured two months after being given the education using the application and food model. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was then applied to compare the two groups. In general, no difference was found in the portion estimation ratio between the groups (p = 0.83). Most of the respondents (75.3%) showed a tendency to overestimate the portion size of food served to them. The absence of a gap between the groups indicated that the use of “The GIZIKU” application (and may apply to other electronic-based delivery modes) can be a feasible alternative for more effective, affordable and practical nutrition education.