Grant: Project Grant

A healthy diet plays an important role in well-being; however, most people do not follow diet recommendations. Tracking the food you eat (diet self-monitoring) can help to make and maintain dietary changes. Current diet tracking tools are usually complex and time consuming and can lead to people stopping soon after starting. Typically, these tools require individuals to itemize foods, which is difficult for people of lower health literacy. They also do not reflect the new Canada's Food Guide (CFG) that differs from its predecessors by showing how food should be proportioned on a plate, rather than providing a list of serving measures per food group. A self-monitoring tool that will facilitate adherence to the new CFG and its new visual approach is urgently needed. Our goal is to translate the CFG from an educational tool to a diet self-monitoring application called iCANPlate for all Canadians to facilitate dietary behaviour change. We will: (1)Explore how people of different health literacy levels use iCANPlate. (2)Determine whether iCANPlate is a usable and acceptable app. (3)Test the effects of iCANPlate for making dietary changes and adhering to diet tracking. Interviews will be conducted with people of different health literacy levels to explore how they use iCANPlate. Data from this study will be used to refine iCANPlate and to create inclusive educational resources on how to use the app and the CFG. A trial will be launched to explore the usability and acceptability of the app. Then, a pilot study will be conducted to compare changes in diet quality and adherence to self-monitoring when using iCANPlate compared to receiving nutrition education only.