Professional Exploration: 15 Sketches to 1 Concept

Yuchen Tong 11/25/18

Childhood Obesity: Why does it matter?

There is a rising trend of the number of overweight children globally, and it is rising very fast. In the U.S, $14 billion will be spend on childhood obesity related health expenses. Serious diseases causing by childhood obesity is threatening many children's life and happiness.

Persona

I create a persona to picture a typical child with childhood obesity issue. Provide context and scenario for the research and ideation of this topic.

Energy Balance

The fundamental cause of childhood obesity is energy imbalance, This sketch shows the physiological mechanics for weight control, as well as the metrics and tips for helping balance the energy in-and-out of our body.

3 Major Ways VR/AR Can Help Combat Childhood Obesity

According to my research on this topic, I visualized the 3 high level approaches the AR/VR can help with this problem of childhood obesity. They are related to diet, exercise and body image.

9 Ideas Based on AR/VR Technology

1. Use AR food stimuli to help children resist the urge to eat unhealthy food and too much food. Lead to healthier diet and smaller portion.

2. Use "Exergame" to create motivation and environment for in-house physical exercise.

3. Use AR glasses as a realtime calories calculator, to help children be aware of what they are eating.

4. Use virtual food to satisfy their exceeded appetite, to reduce the energy-in.

5. Use AR game to create more opportunities for kids to explore their own house, to avoid exposing kids in unsafe neighborhood environment.

6. Use AR pedometer to visualize the outcome and benefit of their physical exercise.

7. Use virtual exercise coach to make in-house exercise more interactive and fun.

8. Use virtual doctor to help the kids understand their health condition more clearly.

9. Use virtual body to help the kids build right body image for themselves, to treat body image disturbances, and rise body awareness.

Concept: Magic Mirror

I have this wild idea of integrating the 3 approaches and presenting in the form of a magic mirror. So the process of using it will be the users record their diet and exercise daily by phone or other smart devices connected to the mirror, then there will be some backend data analyze. When the users look at the mirror, there will be the real image, then the virtual image of what they will look like in a certain period, like one month, if they keep this healthy diet or regular exercise. It can also be the reverse, that when the users stop exercising or eat fast food, the mirror will show an augmentation of body size. This concept is helping the overweight children by increasing their body awareness, and motivating them to keep healthy diet and regular exercise.