Service–Please: an interactive healthy eating serious game application for tablet computer

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Abstract

While everyone knows that we should eat healthily, translating such information into practice is a major challenge for many of us when it comes to eating well. So despite a huge increase in awareness of the implications of food-choices, obesity levels in the UK continue to increase. In this paper, we present a novel application designed to deliver psychological ‘Approach Avoidance’ training in a serious games format. Developed for tablet computers, gameplay requires players to repeatedly push unhealthy food icons away, and pull healthy food icons towards themselves. The hypothesis for the overall project is that repeated push away gestures will produce an implicit avoidance bias towards unhealthy foods, reducing players’ tendency to consume them. Previous research using a joystick controlled PC training regime has shown success with alcohol choices, however the current project offers the potential for a pervasive game based intervention using a tablet and gestures making such training more readily accessible.

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Most cited references 3

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Retraining automatic action-tendencies to approach alcohol in hazardous drinkers.

Robert Kordts-Freudinger, Reinout W. Wiers, Mike Rinck … (2010)

The main aim of this study was to test whether automatic action-tendencies to approach alcohol can be modified, and whether this affects drinking behaviour. Forty-two hazardous drinkers were assigned randomly to a condition in which they were implicitly trained to avoid or to approach alcohol, using a training variety of the alcohol Approach Avoidance Test (AAT). Participants pushed or pulled a joystick in response to picture-format (landscape or portrait). The pictures depicted alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks. Participants in the avoid-alcohol condition pushed most alcoholic and pulled most non-alcoholic drinks. For participants in the approach-alcohol condition these contingencies were reversed. After the implicit training, participants performed a taste test, including beers and soft drinks. Automatic action tendencies at post-test were assessed with the AAT, including both trained and untrained pictures, and with a different test (Implicit Association Test, IAT). We further tested effects on subjective craving. Action tendencies for alcohol changed in accordance with training condition, with the largest effects in the clinically relevant avoid-alcohol condition. These effects occurred outside subjective awareness and generalized to new pictures in the AAT and to an entirely different test using words, rather than pictures (IAT). In relatively heavy drinking participants who demonstrated changed action tendencies in accordance with their training condition, effects were found on drinking behaviour, with participants in the approach-alcohol condition drinking more alcohol than participants in the avoid-alcohol condition. No effect was found on subjective craving. Retraining automatic processes may help to regain control over addictive impulses, which points to new treatment possibilities.

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Relatively strong automatic appetitive action-tendencies in male carriers of the OPRM1 G-allele.

Reinout W. Wiers, Manon Wildenberg, M. Rinck … (2009)

This study investigated whether automatic approach action tendencies for alcohol-related stimuli were associated with variation in the mu-opioid receptor gene (OPRM1), previously related to rewarding effects of alcohol and craving. An adapted approach avoidance task was used, in which participants pulled or pushed a joystick in reaction to the format of a picture shown on the computer screen (e.g. pull landscape pictures and push portrait pictures). Picture size on the screen changed upon joystick movement, so that upon a pull movement picture size increased (creating a sense of approach) and upon a push movement picture size decreased (avoidance). Participants reacted to four categories of pictures: alcohol-related, other appetitive, general positive and general negative. The sample consisted of 84 heavy drinking young men without a g-allele in the A118G (or A355G) single nucleotide polymorphism of the OPRM1 gene and 24 heavy drinking young men with at least one g-allele. Heavy drinking carriers of a g-allele showed relatively strong automatic approach tendencies for alcohol (approach bias). Unexpectedly, they also showed an approach bias for other appetitive stimuli. No approach bias was found for general positive or negative stimuli. These results suggest that automatic approach tendencies in response to appetitive stimuli could play a role in the etiology of addictive behaviors and related disorders. Further research is needed to investigate the specificity of this approach bias and possible gender differences.

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Super Bowls: serving bowl size and food consumption.

Brian Wansink, Matthew M. Cheney (2005)

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Author and article information

Contributors

Kenneth C. Scott-Brown

Julia Allan

Leif Azzopardi

Marjon van der Pol

Paul Crook

Mark Bamford

Claire Moncrieffe

Donna McAvoy

Ian Reynolds

Conference

Publication date: September 2012

Publication date (Print): September 2012

Pages: 381-385

Affiliations

University of Abertay Dundee

Bell St. Dundee, DD1 1HG

School of Medicine & Dentistry

University of Aberdeen, AB25 2ZD

Health Economics Research Unit

University of Aberdeen, AB25 2ZD

Mathematical & Computer Sciences

Heriot-Watt University, EH14 4AS

University of Abertay Dundee

Quartic Llama, 40 Bell St, Dundee

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2012.55

Copyright statement: © Kenneth C. Scott-Brown et al. Published by BCS Learning and Development Ltd. The 26th BCS Conference on Human Computer Interaction, Birmingham, UK

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: The 26th BCS Conference on Human Computer Interaction

Conference acronym: HCI

Conference number: 26

Conference location: Birmingham, UK

Conference date: 12 - 14 September 2012

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Human Computer Interaction

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Product Information: 1477-9358BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2012.55

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

Service–Please: an interactive healthy eating serious game application for tablet computer

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Abstract

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Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Most cited references 3

Retraining automatic action-tendencies to approach alcohol in hazardous drinkers.

Relatively strong automatic appetitive action-tendencies in male carriers of the OPRM1 G-allele.

Super Bowls: serving bowl size and food consumption.

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