JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) can be managed through diet and lifestyle changes. The American Dietetics Association acknowledges that knowing what and when to eat is the most challenging aspect of diabetes management. While current recommendations for self-monitoring of diet and glucose levels aim to improve glycemic control among people with T2D, tracking all intake is burdensome and unsustainable. Equally effective, but lower burden, dietary self-monitoring approaches should be explored.

Objective:

To examine the feasibility of abbreviated dietary self-monitoring in T2D where only carbohydrate-containing foods are recorded into a diet tracker.

Methods:

We used a mixed methods approach to quantitatively and qualitatively assess general and diet-related diabetes knowledge and the acceptability of reporting only carbohydrate-containing foods in N=30 men and women with T2D.

Results:

The mean Diabetes Knowledge Test score was 83.9±14.2%. Only 6 of 30 (20%) participants correctly categorized 5 commonly-consumed carbohydrate-containing and 5 non-carbohydrate containing foods. The mean perceived difficulty of reporting only carbohydrate-containing foods was 5.3 on a 10-point scale. Approximately half of the participants (53.3%, n=16) preferred to record all foods. A lack of knowledge about carbohydrate-containing foods was the primary cited barrier to acceptability (40%, n=12).

Conclusions:

Abbreviated dietary self-monitoring, where only carbohydrate-containing foods are reported, is likely not feasible due to limited carbohydrate-specific knowledge and a preference of the majority to report all foods. Other approaches to reduce the burden of dietary self-monitoring for people with T2D that do not rely on food specific knowledge could be more feasible.