Promoting Healthy Eating by Design: Opportunities for Meaningful Persuasive Technologies

While eating behavior has a considerable impact on people’s health and well-being, it is well known that changing food practices is an incredibly difficult endeavor. People often lack motivation to modify their diet, and a variety of barriers prevent them from adopting a healthy lifestyle. In this paper, we recount the preliminary findings of the PHaSE project by exploring how people conceptualize food and their eating behaviors. Through a series of co-design workshops, we discovered that people ascribe a variety of meanings to food, spanning from health concerns to emotional relief. These meanings play a crucial role in the process of change. Based on the study findings, we suggest that designers should address the meanings associated with food, rather than placing exclusive emphasis on the behavior to be changed. Additionally, they should promote sense-making and reflection on food practices.