AAU Student Projects - visit Aalborg University's student projects portal
A master's thesis from Aalborg University
Book cover


Usage of data science techniques to personalize and optimize nutrition recommendations and information via a micronutrient focused application

Author

Term

4. semester

Publication year

2024

Submitted on

Pages

64

Abstract

This paper explores the usage of data science techniques, like retrieval augmented generation chatbots, graphRAG, object detection machine learning models, and gen- erally LLMs as well as speech-to-text to create a new nutrition application. This new product shall be able to offer a new value proposition and thus, differentiate itself from preexisting solutions. After regarding prior research in the field, publish- ing and analyzing a survey of potential users, and talking to an actual nutritionist, a difference can be drawn between an aesthetical fitness and a health focus in applica- tions. While most products in the market concentrate on the first one, this paper’s application represents a health- and micronutrient-focused solution. The central element is a food recommendation system based on the concept of vector similar- ity. This way, the application is not only a food tracker, but actually offers more functionality, namely the recommendation of foods based on their nutrient profile. Interpreted from the survey, the logging of foods was furthermore perceived as a pain point in usage of other applications. Hence, computer vision and speech-to-text was successfully used to offer an alternative to the slower, manual process of typing in food names. Throughout, LLMs are a central technology to quickly implement new artificial intelligence-based functionalities, whether solely text-based or multimodal.