Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences in obesity
Obesity Abstracts (2019) 1 P56 | DOI: 10.1530/obabs.01.P56

UKCO2019 Poster Presentations (1) (64 abstracts)

Developing a new Arabic Food Composition Database for an Online Dietary Recall Tool-myfood24

Sondos Kalendar 1 , Areej Bawajeeh 1 , Neil Hancock 1 , Sarah Beer 2 , Lauren Gibson 2 , Basma Dashti 3 , Salwa Akbar 4 , Hannah Ensaff 1 , Michael Zulyniak 1 , Charlotte Evans 1 & Janet Cade 1


1University of Leeds, Leeds, UK; 2Dietary Assessment Ltd, Leeds, UK; 3Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Kuwait, Kuwait; 4Saudi Food & Drug Authority, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.


Background: Assessing dietary intake is fundamental in providing quantification of consumed nutrients, which helps in evaluating nutritional status. Gulf countries, including Kuwait, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Saudi Arabia, have been reported to have the highest prevalence of overweight and obesity in the world. However, food composition data for Middle-Eastern foods are limited, which emphasises the need for a comprehensive food composition database.

Objective: To develop a database of commonly food consumed in Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for inclusion in an Arabic version of the myfood24 online dietary assessment tool.

Method: The Arabic Food Composition Database was built using a systematic approach and from a number of sources: 1. Food composition tables (Kuwaiti’s Composite Food Table, Food Composition for Use in the Middle East, Food Composition Tables for Arab Gulf Countries and myfood24 Food Composition Databases (FCDB)); 2. Food commonly consumed in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait found in published papers; 3. Back-of-Pack (BOP) nutrition information taken from major food venders in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and 4. Recipes from local recipe books for common composite food not included in the identified databases. Complete nutrition information for each food was generated using the myfood24 FCDB Microsoft Access mapping tool. Arabic foods were allocated to similar generic products to fill in missing values of micronutrients. Macronutrient values for all composite and branded foods were taken from the original identified data and BOP food labels.

Results: The database includes 602 new food items. 157 composite food items from food tables, 74 BOP products from vendors in Saudi Arabia, 371 BOP from vendors in Kuwait. In addition, a further 1963 food items were selected from existing myfood24 Food Composition Databases to complete the current food database.

Conclusion: A representative food database of commonly consumed food in the Middle East has been created. This will be essential to characterise dietary intake in these populations.

Keywords: Food composition table, myfood24, composite food, Middle East

Disclosure: JEC, NH, SB, LG are involved in Dietary Assessment Ltd.

Volume 1

UK Congress on Obesity 2019

Leeds, United Kingdom
12 Sep 2019 - 13 Sep 2019

Association for the Study of Obesity 

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