The gender approach in NESTORE: nutritional coaching
Significant differences exist between women and men regarding their nutritional needs, mainly from puberty period until old age. How was that taken into account by NESTORE partners in the development of a virtual coach for ageing well? Our partner EURECAT reports.
A complex interplay between factors such as sex steroid hormones and genetics could explain these differences. Energy requirements are usually higher in men than in women due to higher energy expenditure driven by a greater muscle mass and physical activity. On the other hand, the recommended intakes for some vitamins and minerals vary depending on sex mostly because of differences in metabolism and nutrient bioavailability. Moreover, the different brain structure between men and women is thought to be involved in a distinct feeding behaviour.
Personalization is a key element to properly supporting the improvement of dietary habits and thus, achieving a healthy aging. Accordingly, in NESTORE, we take into account gender differences, so personalizing the coaching guidelines for men and women and helping to cover the individual nutritional needs of each user.
The decision-support system in NESTORE takes into consideration not only gender-specific nutritional requirements such as total energy, water and micronutrients needs, but also sex-dependent reference cut-off values that are needed to perform an appropriate nutritional assessment, for example, by considering the different waist circumference reference values between both sexes to evaluate the risk for metabolic complications, or the different normal ranges of muscle mass to determine if a nutritional coaching plan is required.
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