The Remote Food Photography Method Is Valid for Assessing Dietary Intake of Serie A Football Players

To ensure football players meet their nutritional demands, sport nutritionists need to accurately collect and analyse dietary intake. However, dietary assessment methods have limitations. The Remote Food Photography Method (RFPM) is a valid approach, but the validation in real-life settings requires further investigations. This study aims to evaluate validity, accuracy and agreement of analysing energy and macronutrient intake using the RFPM in Serie A football players. Twenty players collected food intake over six nonconsecutive post-training meals representative of three typical training days. Players independently served themselves food from the club's canteen; plates were then weighed and consequently photographed. Energy, carbohydrate (CHO), protein and fat intake were analysed. RFPM demonstrated a very large validity between weighed and estimated values for CHO (rrmcorr (repeated measure correlation) = 0.87, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.82-0.92, p < 0.05), protein (rrmcorr = 0.87, 95% CI: 0.81-0.92, p < 0.05), fat (rrmcorr = 0.87, 95% CI: 0.81-0.92, p < 0.05) and energy intake (rrmcorr = 0.85, 95% CI: 0.78-0.90, p < 0.05). Good agreement was observed for CHO -0.83 [-24.41 to 22.75] g, protein 3.23 [-10.87 to 17.33] g, fat 0.85 [-6.96 to 8.66] g and energy 17.27 [-160.41 to 194.95] kcal. There was no systematic bias. Moderate accuracy and acceptable precision, consistent over different training days, were demonstrated for CHO, protein and energy intake. Intra-operator reliability, performed by repeating 30% of the estimations by the same operator, was good for CHO (CV = 4.7%), protein (CV = 3.6%) and energy (CV = 3.8%) and acceptable for fat intake (CV = 7.8%). The study confirms the RFPM is accurate and reliable for assessing energy and macronutrient intake of elite football players in a real-training environment.