Influencers can breathe a collective sigh of relief today, as new research from Curtin University indicated that taking pictures of our food could be the key to improving our diets.

The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that people who capture that content are significantly better at judging their nutritional intake than those who don’t.

We can’t help but feel this was a dinner party squabble that went too far but whatever.

First author and PhD candidate Clare Whitton led the team of researchers – who have inadvertently settled an argument forever –  by measuring the weight of meals provided to participants over the course of one day. For breakfast, lunch and dinner, participants used different technology-assisted techniques to remember what they had eaten in the past 24 hours. 

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One snap-happy group was asked to photograph their food – those photographs were then analysed by a research dietitian. The study found that when asked to recall their meals, the accuracy of the nutritional intake was significantly higher in the group that had taken a snap of their food when compared to subjects who were only asked to remember what they had eaten.

Whitton said of the results, “People can struggle to remember what they have eaten, but this study shows dietary assessment can be accurate – particularly when you take the burden away from the person when you ask them to take a photo of what they ate.”

The researchers are now working alongside experts at Perdue University in the US to streamline the process, using artificial intelligence to analyse the foods photographed and estimate their nutritional value and make-up.

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