Mobile Application: An Approach with the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) for the Allocation and Generation of Dietary Plans

Abstract

Obesity prevalence rates rise every year around the globe. This has become an alarming issue, due to the distress caused by the high probability of developing obesity in childhood which continues into adulthood, creating great health problems and even mortality. As a result, emerging technologies such as mobile applications have had a direct impact on the world of health, these rely on various specialized algorithms. This study seeks to propose an approach based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), to assign and generate dietetic plans which will be used by nutritionists and patients. This approach consists of five phases: (1) anthropometric data definition, (2) macronutrients selection, (3) dietary meals dataset definition, (4) AHP definition (in order to obtain the best macronutrient and dietary meal) and (5) mobile application design. Two different experiments were conducted in a private medical entity, involving eight nutritionists and eight patients, who considered the following metrics: the creation time of dietetic plans, the number of monthly revisions, the precision level and the satisfaction levels. The results showed that mobile application users achieved significantly better outcomes in the assignation and generation of dietetic plans than those who used the traditional method.

Keywords

• mobile application
• analytical hierarchy process
• dietary plans
• health apps
• obesity