Godbharle, S., Jeyakumar, A., & Kesa, H. 2025, Food away from home and the risk of non-communicable diseases among young working adults in Pune, India: a smartphone-based dietary assessment, BMC nutrition, 11(1), 202.

Background
The shift towards increased consumption of food away from home (FAFH) has been recognized as
a significant contributor to the global rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Despite this, dietary assessment
in such contexts often relies on traditional methods prone to recall bias. This study, therefore, employed a novel
smartphone-based dietary tracking application called “FoodLog” to investigate the factors associated with FAFH
consumption and its relationship with NCD risk among young working adults in Pune, India.

Methods
A case-control study was conducted with 1,000 participants (330 cases, 670 controls), aged 25–45 years.
Dietary intake was recorded over five consecutive days using the ‘FoodLog’ app, designed to minimize recall bias.
Sociodemographic data were collected via a semi-structured Google Forms questionnaire. Unadjusted and adjusted
odds ratios were calculated to assess associations between FAFH consumption, participant characteristics, and NCD
risk.

Results
Approximately 35% of participants reported consuming FAFH during the previous week. FAFH consumption
was significantly associated with male gender, being married, employment as a consultant, and living alone.
Correlations were also found between self-reported chronic conditions and variables such as age (36–45 years),
certain professions, marital status, physical inactivity, alcohol consumption, smoking, non-vegetarian diets, and
FAFH consumption. FAFH consumers had a 1.48 times higher likelihood of having chronic conditions (AOR = 1.48, CI:
1.25–1.87).

Conclusions
The use of a mobile dietary app offers promising avenues for scalable nutrition monitoring. Findings
support targeted public health interventions tailored to urban subgroups and encourage multidisciplinary research to
address contextual dietary determinants.

 
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Learn more about the author(s)

Angeline Jeyakumar
Angeline Jeyakumar
 

Also of Interest:

 
Integrating traditional food properties with modern nutrition to develop complementary foods from local resources. An acceptability study in tribal regions of Jawhar among undernourished children.
This article is unique for the comprehensive methodology and study design to perform a community-based action/ evaluation project for the management of child undernutrition in the tribal regions of India
 Bhalare, S., Deshmukh, S., Godbharle, S., & Jeyakumar, A. 2025, Bulletin of the National Research Centre, 49(1), 23.