M. I. M. Jayarathna, W. A. C. Weerakoon
Abstract
Due to the busy lifestyle and the negligence of health, human beings are becoming the victims of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD). Further, the hereditary and lifestyle factors are major causes of NCD. My Smart Diet is a menu planning android application with the Genetic Algorithmic (GA) approach. It suggests healthy meals with Sri Lankan foods and beverage. Moreover, My Smart Diet app uses calorie requirements and nutrition needs per day of a person according to age, height, weight, daily activities. These parameters are taken from the user. Foods and actual daily calorie and nutrients that suggested by nutritionist and other sources have been stored in MYSQL database. In this application, evolutionary computing has been applied in two levels. In the first level, the chromosomes have been designed using a dietary nutrient with 21 genes, where the nutrients and quantities were used as the genes. In the second level, the chromosomes have been designed using dietary foods with a variable length. The numbers of genes rely on user inputs. There, the Sri Lankan food items and quantities have represented the genes. Further, in the first level, the fitness function has been designed using user inputs and sample personal data based on nutritional data and chromosomes, while in the second level, the fitness function has been designed using foods that insert by the user, nutrition recommendation that given by the first genetic algorithm and chromosomes. Moreover, in these two levels, the individual with the lowest fitness value has been selected as the output. In addition to that, application testing was conducted by colleagues for its functionality and user satisfaction. Finally, the app has been evaluated using the preference given by its users compared with the preference received by the same group of users who used the Fitness Meal Planner app (an existing western food meal planner). After that, the preferences have been evaluated by applying the Sign test. Overall, the Smart Diet app ranks higher than Fitness Meal Planner. Ultimately, Sri Lankan users can live a healthy life using my Smart Diet app.
Keywords: Genetic Algorithm, Android application, My Smart Diet, PHP Restful API
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