Designing and Evaluating a Nutrition Recommender System for Improving Food Security in a Developing Country

Area of Science:

• Nutrition Informatics
• Health Informatics
• Recommender Systems

Background:

• Rising food prices and diminished food security in Iran necessitate innovative solutions.
• Nutrition recommender systems can guide users toward healthy and affordable dietary choices.
• Tele-nutrition consulting services can further support public health initiatives.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and evaluate a novel recommender system for suggesting healthy and affordable meals.
• To integrate a tele-nutrition consulting service within the developed system.
• To address food security challenges through personalized dietary recommendations.

Main Methods:

• A three-phase applied study conducted in 2020.
• Extraction of daily food prices and categorization of meals into price tiers.
• System requirements defined through systematic literature review and expert consensus (nutritionists, health informatics professionals).
• Web-based software development (TanSa) and usability evaluation using Nielsen's heuristic principles.

Main Results:

• 72 nutritionally compliant meals categorized into three price groups.
• 31 essential data elements identified and confirmed for system functionality.
• The Persian-language web-based software, TanSa, was successfully developed.
• Expert evaluation indicated minor usability issues (mean severity 1.2).

Conclusions:

• The TanSa system effectively recommends healthy, nutritional, and affordable meals.
• The system supports individuals and households in improving food security.
• User characteristics are utilized for personalized meal suggestions.