DESKTOP REFERENCE FOR SERVING SIZES

这个拟议项目的具体目标是开发和测试关于食物份量的教育和参考工具。该桌面参考资料首先可用于培训卫生专业人员，其次可用于临床和流行病学营养评估。第一阶段的目标是确定使用鼠标或书写板调整屏幕上显示的食物或容器大小的可行性。具体地说，在第一阶段，USDA食物金字塔指南和USDA关于1994-1996年全国调查期间个人食物消费的数据将被用来创建3张参考大小的照片：i)食物金字塔服务大小，2)中位数服务量和3)美国人口对同一食物的服务量的95%。照片将使用共同的背景，如纸盘，作为辅助锚。这些照片将被数字化，以便使用相同的屏幕/边框大小的计算机显示。使用第一张照片(金字塔服务)，将测试在静态背景上调整食物对象大小并同时重新计算服务大小的技术可行性。照片2和3将用于验证调整大小的显示和计算算法。拟议的商业应用：营养师和从事治疗、健康促进或疾病预防的营养咨询实践的其他健康专业人员，以及从事营养研究和肥胖预防临床试验的研究人员，需要参考工具来改进对食物消耗量的估计和报告。培训营养师和食品服务技术员的学校还需要一个有效和容易获得的参考资料，用于教学份额的识别、估计和控制。

The specific aim of this proposed project is to develop and test educational and reference tool on food serving size. This desktop reference can be used first in training health professionals, and second as an aid in clinical and epidemiologic nutritional assessments. The Phase I objective is to establish the feasibility of resizing foods or containers displayed on the screen, using either a mouse or a writing tablet. Specifically in Phase I, the USDA Food Pyramid Guide and the USDA data on food consumption of individuals during the 1994-1996 national survey will be used to create 3 photographs of reference sizes: I) the Food Pyramid serving size, 2) the median serving amount and 3) 95th percentile of serving amount consumed by the US population for the same food item. Photographs will be taken using a common background, such as a paper plate, to serve as a secondary anchor. These photographs will be digitized for computer display using the same screen/frame size. Using the first photograph (Pyramid serving) the technical feasibility of resizing of the food object on a static background with concurrent recalculation of the serving size will be tested. Photographs 2 and 3 will be used to verify the resized display and calculation algorithms. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: Dietitians and other health professionals in the practice of nutrition counseling for therapy, health promotion, or disease prevention, as well as researchers engaged in nutritional studies and clinical trials in obesity prevention need reference tools that will improve estimation and reporting of amounts of food consumed. Schools training dietitians and food service technicians also need an effective and readily accessible reference for teaching portion recognition, estimation and control.