FoodWorks: Tackling fussy eating by digitally augmenting children's meals

Sangita Ganesh, Paul Marshall, Yvonne Rogers, Kenton O'Hara

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference Contribution (Conference Proceeding)

41 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Persuading children to eat healthily can be challenging. Parents and guardians commonly have trouble encouraging young children to eat their vegetables, who often prefer less wholesome alternatives. Parents regularly employ a range of methods that encourage or distract children to eat food they don't want to eat. Digital technologies, such as augmented reality and interactive animations offer new possibilities for enhancing this process. Our research is concerned with how such technology interventions can be used to change behavior in fussy children's eating habits by altering the context of 'playing' with food. FoodWorks was designed to digitally augment a plate of food and provide rewards for completion of the meal. An exploratory in the wild study was conducted using it with 7 families, for children aged between 3-9. The findings were encouraging, providing new insights on social interactions and the effects digital augmentation can have on eating behavior.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the NordiCHI 2014
Subtitle of host publicationThe 8th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Fun, Fast, Foundational
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Pages147-156
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)1595930361, 9781450325424
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2014
Event8th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, NordiCHI 2014 - Helsinki, Finland
Duration: 26 Oct 201430 Oct 2014

Conference

Conference8th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, NordiCHI 2014
Country/TerritoryFinland
CityHelsinki
Period26/10/1430/10/14

Research Groups and Themes

  • Bristol Interaction Group

Keywords

  • Children
  • Digital augmentation
  • Digitally-enhanced food
  • Persuasive technologies
  • Virtual rewards

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