Testing the Reliability of a New Diet Tracking App That Mirrors Canada’s Food Guide, iCANPlate

Objectives: To assess the accuracy of the iCANPlate app in capturing dietary intake by comparing entries from general users to those of a registered dietitian (RD, the expert)Methods: An observational study was conducted in April 2024 at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver) with n59 adults (79.66% women) who tested iCANPlate by recording a preselected lunch provided to them in a laboratory setting.A researcher photographed each meal, and a registered dietitian (RD) used the photos to quantify the food group proportions of each participant's meal.Since the data consisted of continuous values, inter-rater reliability between participant and RD recordings for each food group category was analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficients.Results: The app exhibited moderate inter-rater reliability for Fruits and Vegetables (r 0.62, p < 0.0001), Proteins (r 0.53, p < 0.0001) and Other foods (r 0.42, p < 0.01).Fair agreement was observed for Grains (r 0.39, p < 0.01).Beverages demonstrated poor agreement, with no statistical significance (r 0.22, p > 0.05 ).Variability in inter-rater reliability may stem from participants' education levels and socioeconomic backgrounds, influencing their food exposure.Conclusions: iCANPlate demonstrated moderate interrater reliability for documenting most food categories.However, users did not accurately track beverages, highlighting an area for improvement.These findings support iCANPlate's potential for dietary self-monitoring while emphasizing the need for more research to refine and optimize its reliability.