ISSN 2278-3091

Volume 8, No.1.5, 2019

Nur Afriza Baki et al., International Journal of Advanced Trends in Computer Science and Engineering, 8(1.5), 2019, 87 - 90
International Journal of Advanced Trends in Computer Science and Engineering
Available Online at http://www.warse.org/IJATCSE/static/pdf/file/ijatcse1881.52019.pdf
https://doi.org/10.30534/ijatcse/2019/1881.52019

Application of Linear Programming in Students’ Diet Problem

Nur Afriza Baki1, N Siti Madihah N Mangsor2, M. Khairi A Razak3

1
Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia, [email protected]
2
Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia, [email protected]
3
Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia, [email protected]


ABSTRACT Linear Programming (LP) is well known method in solving
many minimization or maximization problems such as diet
Nowadays, the prices of everything in Malaysia is steadily problems. Linear programming help to find optimal solution
increasing due to various factors such as economy, politics such as maximum profit or minimum cost in a given
and technological advancements. Therefore, the price for mathematical model and given some list of requirements as a
necessity such as food has also been increased drastically. linear equation [3]. LP have been widely used in many fields
Therefore, students are obligated to spend as minimum as such as food and agriculture, manufacturing, engineering and
possible every day. Due to this, they tend to neglect healthy transportation. In the diet problem, the cost is set as the
eating patterns and consume insufficient nutrients per day. objective function and the constraints are the minimum
This will cause many complications such as diseases, requirement of nutrient intake.
sicknesses and lack of energy to focus in lectures. A survey
was distributed to 100 respondents which are UiTM Kuala
The studies which apply LP to diet problems begin in year of
Terengganu students to collect information regarding their
1950 and 1960 and the exploration for diet solutions started
daily diet patterns. This survey is based on the menus of the
with Jerry Cornfield (1941-1945) which sought to find a
food provided by the cafeteria in UiTM Kuala Terengganu.
Using these data, linear programming models of the diet low-cost diet that can satisfy the nutritional needs of a soldier
problems is set up and solved to determine the minimum cost [4]. Since then, LP has been widely used in solving many diet
which satisfy the daily recommended nutrients. It is found that cases. One of the latest studies is by Devcic, Belio and Gacina.
the minimum is RM7.90. [5] who applied Linear Programming to minimize the diet
cost on the example of a three-day menu. Their paper
Key words: Diet problem, Linear Programming, Students, proposes three-day menus for men from 19 to 50 years and for
University women from 19 to 50 years.

1. INTRODUCTION LP also has been used in modelling other problems.

Satheeshkumar [6] used linear programming to solve the
There are a great number of elements that affect health status. problem of nurse shifts and nurse allocation on day-to-day
The major element which is very modifiable and controllable basis to get the optimal allocation that minimizes cost in
is diet and nutrition. Diet is basically the sum of food you health unit. Balogun [7] also used linear programming to
consume, providing what the body needs and greatly affecting maximize profit of cola manufacturing company by
how an individual function physically, rationally and even considering production constraint of different products in the
socially. Nutrition is the main concern with general wellbeing calculations. LP also has been integrated with other method to
since numerous nutritional choices incline toward poor solve more complex problem. In [8], Linear Program
decision, creating unhealthy habits and the related impacts Boosting Classification (LPBC) is used in weather forecasting
[1]. College is a critical period involved in unhealthy changes problem, for categorizing the weather data for predicting
in eating practices among students. The demanding cost of future outcomes by constructing the weak learners.
living expenses greatly put a burden on students' budget, since
they rely on education loans such as Perbadanan Tabung There are many methods that can be used to solved LP
Pendidikan Tinggi Nasional (PTPTN) for their daily problems such as graphical method or Simplex method. It
expenses. In 2008, more than 60% of Malaysian students are consumes a lot of times to solve the LP models manually by
financed by PTPTN [2]. They may also be inexperienced at using these methods. Nowadays, the are many softwares have
budgeting for their essential needs. Also, nutritious meals been invented such as WinQSB, LINDO, MS Office Excel
might be considerably far from reach. Food product costs and and other. With the aids of this computer software, linear
individual spending pattern impact students' food choices. programming models can be solved easily in a wider range of
constraints.

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This paper applied the LP to determine the minimum cost of amn = amount of nutrient type m in menu type n
UiTM Kuala Terengganu students, and the LP model are
solved using the Solver function which comes with the Since the data collected is based on the menu provided by the
Microsoft Excel software. café in UiTM Kuala Terengganu, hence the LP model will be
set up based on the price of food determined by the café. The
2. METHODOLOGY following are the example of common choices of menu sold at
the café (Table 2).
2.1 Collecting data and formulation

A simple survey is distributed to 100 students of Universiti Table 2: Choice of common food sold at the cafe
Menu Menu name Price
Teknologi MARA Cawangan Terengganu Kampus Kuala
label (RM)
Terengganu (UiTMCTKKT). The purpose of the survey is to x1 Plain rice 1.00
discover each students’ diet pattern. The survey requires x2 Fried Noodle 4.00
student to answer what they most prefer to eat for breakfast, x3 Fried Rice 3.50
lunch and dinner. Additionally, the survey also aims to x4 Nasi Lemak 2.50
discover students’ attitude toward healthy eating habits. The x5 Fried Chicken 2.50
choice of menu and suggested in the survey was obtained x6 Fried Egg 1.00
through a short interview carried out on a staff of the cafe. x7 Nugget 1.00
While, the nutritional content of each menu is obtained from x8 Curry Puff 1.00
x9 Donut 1.00
the website of Ministry of Health. is very important in setting
x10 White Bread 0.50
up the LP model. In order to obtain feasible solution for this x11 Wholemeal Bread 0.60
diet problem, this study only considered 6 nutrients which are x12 Cream Cracker Biscuit 0.30
protein, fat, carbohydrate, calcium, phosphorus and vitamin x13 Cereal 0.90
C. Furthermore, fulfilling all nutrients at once is realistically x14 Fried Eel (Ikan Keli) 3.00
not possible. x15 “Kentang Masak Sambal” 1.00
x16 “Sayur Campur” 1.00
The LP model for each student is difference, since each x17 Chicken Rice 4.50
x18 Fried Maggie 4.00
student have different preferred menus. Hence, the objective
x19 Fried Mee Hoon 4.00
function and constraints for each student will also be different.
x20 Mee Soup 3.50
The formulated constraints are subjected to the recommended x21 Mee Hoon Soup 3.50
daily intake (Table 1) of the following nutrient. x22 Chicken Soup 3.50
x23 Chicken Burger 2.80
Table 1: Recommended Daily Intake x24 Beef Burger 2.80
x25 Egg Banjo 2.50
Nutrient Recommended daily intake x26 Plain Water 0.00
Protein 55g x27 Iced Tea 1.00
Fat 46g x28 Iced Tea with Milk 1.50
Carbohydrate (CHO) 180g x29 Iced Syrup 1.00
Phosphorus (P) 700mg x30 Orange Juice 1.00
Vitamin C 70mg x31 Iced Milo 1.50
Calcium 800mg

Hence, based on the recommended daily nutrient above, the 2.1 Implementation
linear programming models are set up as follows:
The following are the choice of menu for 3 meals session in a
day choose by Student 26 (Table 3) and the nutrient content in
Minimize Z = c1 x1 + c2 x2 + ...+ cn xn
Subject to : each menu.
a11 x1 + a12 x2 + ...+ c1n xn  55g
a21 x1 + a22 x2 + ...+ c2n xn  46g Table 3: Nutritional content of menu choose by Student 26
a31 x1 + a32 x2 + ... + c3n xn  180g Menu x1 x15 x3 x25
a41 x1 + a42 x2 + ... + c4n xn  700mg
a51 x1 + a52 x2 + ... + c5n xn  70mg Protein (g) 2.3 6.2 6.7 7.6
a61 x1 + a62 x2 + ...+ c6n xn  800mg Fat (g) 0.1 15 5.3 9.4
x1 , x2 , x3 , x4  1 Carbohydrate (g) 30 53 26 23
Phosphorus (mg) 26 0 203 145
where, Vitamin C (mg) 0 7.6 0.5 4
cn = cost of menu n Calcium (mg) 3 36 16 42
xn = menu of type n

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Hence, based on the information collected from Student 26, campur”

the LP model for student 26 is as follow: 2 bottles of plain water, 2 servings of “sayur
17.40 campur”, 9 pieces of cream cracker biscuits, and
Minimize Z = x1 + x2 + 3.5 x3 + 2.5 x4 5 pieces of fried chicken
1 bottle of plain water, 1 glass of orange juice,
Subject to : iced tea, 1 piece of fried chicken, 1 serving of
17.80
beef burger, egg banjo, and 26 pieces of white
2.3 x1 + 6.2 x2 + 6.7 x3 + 7.6 x4  55g
bread
0.1x1 +15 x2 + 5.3 x3 + 9.4 x4  46g 1 bottle of plain water, 1 glass of iced tea, 1 plate
of plain rice, fried chicken, mee hoon soup, 2
30 x1 + 53 x2 + 26 x3 + 23 x4  180g 17.90 servings of “sayur campur”, 9 pieces of cream
cracker biscuit, and 4 glasses of iced tea with
26 x1 + 0 x2 + 203 x3 +145 x4  700mg milk
0 x1 + 7.6 x2 + 0.5 x3 + 4 x4  70mg

3 x1 + 36 x2 +16 x3 + 42 x4  800mg
If all available menus are considered in the LP model, a
x1 , x2 , x3 , x4  1 minimum diet of RM7.90 is obtained which consists of 2
pieces of white bread, 18 pieces of cream crackers, 4 bowls of
This LP model then is solved using the Solver (Figure 1) cereals and 2 servings of “sayur campur”. However, this menu
function which comes with the Microsoft Excel software. might not satisfy the preferences of many students because of
the repeated choice of menu for 3 meals.
Figure 1: Excel Solver Solution for Student 26 By observation, most of the diet under RM20 have menu
choices with high Calcium or Vitamin C to cost ratio such as
wholemeal bread, white bread, cereal, ice tea with milk, fried
chicken and especially “sayur campur”.
Some students choose the wrong type of food, hence it is
difficult to fulfill all recommended nutrient intake with low
cost. Some of the diets cost more than RM100, which is
unreasonable. This is caused by the student’s menu choices
having too little content of certain nutrients.

5. CONCLUSION
The Solver is specialized to solve linear programming
problems and the chosen solving method is the Simplex
It is very important to select good choice of food in order to
method. Through this Solver, the values of x will be
satisfy the daily recommended nutrient intake. Based on the
calculated such that all the constraints are satisfied, and Z is
diets discovered, the best menus are such as vegetables, bread,
minimized.
cereals, cream crackers, and fried chicken. Vegetables are rich
in vitamins and fried chicken is a good resource for protein.
In case that no solution is found for any one model, the menu
However, based on the survey conducted, many students in
of diet for that student is neglected. The solutions found are
UiTM Kuala Terengganu does not prefer vegetable menu in
discussed based on various factors such as price, quantity and
their daily diet. This is mostly because of preferences and
feasibility. The many possible diets are then suggested to all
limited choices of menu that contain vegetable.
students of UiTMCTKKT.
The diets discovered from this research might only be best
suited for students of UiTMCTKKT. This is because the
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
menus considered in the LP models are chosen based on the
menus easily available for the students, and the daily
Based on the survey answers given by students, 100 diets are recommended intakes are based on the age of the students.
calculated using Microsoft Excel Solver software. The Other universities or institutions will have different menu
following are four of the lowest-cost diets found (Table 4). choices and different prices. Therefore, a separate research
can be carried out on those places to obtain diets which are
Table 4: Example of the low-cost diets suitable for those places, using similar methods and
Cost procedures. In addition, a further research for diets of students
Menu content (3 meals)
(RM) with special needs can also be considered, for example student
2 glasses of iced tea with milk, 2 pieces of white with gastric problem or athletic students who require different
13.00 bread, 1 plate of plain rice, 1 serving of fried egg, nutrient intake than regular student.
2 pieces of fried chicken and 2 servings of “sayur
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors would like to acknowledge UiTM Terengganu

Branch Kuala Terengganu Campus for its support.

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