Ask a chatbot: ‘What’s for dinner?’

Olivia Scholes, 28, of Vancouver, British Columbia, has polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS. She is among the estimated 1 in 10 women globally who are diagnosed with this hormonal condition, which can cause multiple ovarian cysts, infertility, weight gain, and other issues.

After being diagnosed with PCOS about 10 years ago, Scholes managed her condition in part by trying to consume — or abstain from — certain foods and drinks. But at times, transferring her knowledge from her brain to her plate proved complicated and time-consuming.

“Just because I know that information doesn’t mean that I’m planning my meals with that information all the time,” Scholes said.

Scholes was scrolling through TikTok when she saw a video explaining how ChatGPT was used to build a detailed nutrition and workout plan. That video inspired Scholes to see if the chatbot, an artificial intelligence program trained to give a detailed response to a prompt, could give her meal options tailored to PCOS.

Weight and insulin management can help reduce the impact of PCOS. Because many people with PCOS experience insulin resistance, controlling insulin levels through diet is one of the best steps people can take to help manage the condition.

She started by asking ChatGPT if it knew what foods were best for people with PCOS and insulin resistance, and the chatbot provided a list of foods that met the criteria. Scholes followed up by asking if the system could provide a two-week meal plan that catered to PCOS and insulin resistance, consisting of three meals a day, two snacks a day, and desserts without artificial sweeteners. Within seconds, Scholes had a list of foods, which she then asked ChatGPT to turn into a grocery list.

Although Scholes already knew a lot of information ChatGPT gave her about PCOS and her diet, she said the chatbot transforming that information into planned-out meals would make it easier for her to purchase ingredients for a variety of meals in the future.

“For me, the big help that ChatGPT was, was not only did it take the information that I already knew; it put that information in, like, a tangible space for me,” said Scholes.

ChatGPT — developed by the company OpenAI — launched publicly in November and reached 100 million active users in January, making it the fastest-growing consumer app in history.

ChatGPT is trained on a large body of text from a variety of sources, such as Wikipedia, books, news articles, and scientific journals. The advanced AI chatbot allows users to enter a text prompt and receive an intelligently generated output that allows for back-and-forth conversations. Other chatbots, such as Google’s Bard and Bing AI chat, also from Microsoft, are similar to ChatGPT and can plan meals.

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