Reliability and Validity of Nutrient Assessment Applications for Canadian Endurance Athletes: MyFitnessPal and Cronometer
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: The purpose of the present observational study was to assess the inter-rater reliability and validity of two free nutrition apps, MyFitnessPal (MFP) and Cronometer (CRO), among Canadian endurance athletes. METHODS: Two raters independently input 43 three-day food intake records (FIR) (27M/16F) into MFP and CRO, and one rater input each FIR into ESHA Food Processor® using the reference standard 2015 Canadian Nutrient File (CNF) database. RESULTS: MFP showed a consistent difference in measurements between raters for total energy and carbohydrates (absolute reliability), but the difference was too small to be clinically meaningful; further, raters were inconsistent for sodium and sugar (relative reliability), particularly among men. MFP showed poor validity for total energy, carbohydrates, protein, cholesterol, sugar, and fibre, with discrepancies for total energy, carbohydrates and sugar being driven by women, and protein differences by men. Rationale for low reliability and validity may be due to the copious options for each food entry in MFP, including non-verified consumer entries. Possible rationale for gender differences may be more detailed and descriptive FIRs (reliability) and generally more varied dietary patterns (validity) in women compared to men. Conversely, CRO showed good to excellent inter-rater reliability for all nutrients and good validity for all nutrients except for fibre and vitamins A and D, with no differences between genders. Rationale for low validity of fibre may be due to how it is represented in the software (i.e., total vs. soluble), and rationale for vitamins A and D may be due to fortification practices differing between brands and countries. Bland-Altman plots for inter-rater reliability and validity revealed smaller bias, narrower LOAs, and better horizonal spread of data when using CRO compared to MFP. CONCLUSION: Given the unique energy and nutrient needs of athletes, they should be aware that MFP may provide dietary information that does not accurately reflect true intake, and that CRO could serve as a promising alternative.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.013 | 0.038 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".