Question

Can other sensors be used to detect food consumption? What will be the challenges in using other sensors? Could they be combined with visual approaches.

Answer 1

Other sensors that can be used for food cosumption detection are:

• piezoelectric strain gauge sensor used to capture movement of the lower jaw
• Introduction of custom designed software into a mobile phone with a camera to capture images of foods before and after the meal
• wearable device integrating miniature camera, a microphone and several other sensors (accelerometers, reference lights, etc)
• wearable sensor detecting food intake through capturing chewing sounds
• Surface EMG : sense the activation of jaw muscles during mastication by placing electrodes over the skin surface.
• Earpads sensors :they detect chewing sounds by capturing air-conduced vibrations inside the ear canal.

Limitation of detecting food intake by monitoring of swallowing is the uniqueness of swallowing sound for each individual which results in a need for individual calibration and thus low accuracy of group recognition models.

Using of images is again dependent on individuals precision and honesty to capture each image which may result in faulty results.

Surface EMG can obstruct with free living.

Sounds and vibrations detect while talking are similar while eating and may lead to faulty detection and results.

Combination of visual approaches with other sensors use cameras to take images or record the food being consumed by an individual