IJAIT (International Journal of Applied Information Technology)
Vol 08 No 02 (November 2024)

MotivEat: A Web-Based Meal Planning Application with Ingredient Recognition for Personalized Nutritional Guidance

Baldovino, Britanny (Unknown)
Estephany Ferrer, Beverly (Unknown)



Article Info

Publish Date
27 Jan 2026

Abstract

Noncommunicable diseases are prevalent in the Philippines. Filipinos increasingly suffer from undernutrition or overnutrition. This can be caused by a lack of budget and nutritional awareness. Tolerating improper macronutrient intake is related to a higher risk of chronic diseases. Although varying solutions have been attempted, there is potential for discoveries. Specifically, with food choice technologies, motivation is an under-researched topic. Thus, this study explores the topic through the development of a meal planner web application that enables users to plan meals based on recipe selections tailored to their recommended macronutrient intake and available ingredients. Considering price, convenience, and experience, a proposed motivational concept based on nudging was to enable users to find recipes by scanning available ingredients. For this, a machine learning object detection model was trained to detect ingredients and find recipes. The model had a mean Average Precision (mAP) of 0.526 and an Average Recall (AR) of 0.539. Still, it could detect ingredients even when set at an accuracy of 90% and above. It was then integrated into a web application. Once accessible, the deployed web application was evaluated by nutritionist dietitians and other respondents. An average System Usability Scale (SUS) score of 79/100 was obtained. Moreover, the computed scores for the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) subscales were all higher than 5 out of 7, with a Cronbach’s Alpha value of 0.7. Responses to open-ended questions also showed that users are motivated to eat healthier if they have increased nutritional awareness and pre-existing ingredients in suggested recipes.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

ijait

Publisher

Subject

Computer Science & IT

Description

International Journal of Applied Information Technology covers a broad range of research topics in information technology. The topics include, but are not limited to avionics, bio medical instrumentation, biometric, computer network design, cryptography, data compression, digital signal processing, ...