“The UK has the third-highest rate of excess weight in western Europe behind Iceland and Malta. 67% of men and 57% of women in the UK are overweight or obese according to the study which uses a Body Mass Index (BMI) of over 25 to define ‘overweight’ and a BMI of 30 or more to define ‘obese'” -The Guardian (.2014)
While this is an issue for the whole of the UK, for this problem I plan to focus on targeting children because “children are the future”. I believe if we tackle the issue of childhood obesity for this generation of kids, they will hopefully pass the message on to future generations.
The following extract is copied from the NHS (2015). It shows the prevalence of children who were either overweight or obese ranged as follows:
For boys: 2-5-year-old boys – minimum 19.5% prevalence in 1995, to maximum prevalence 26.0% in 2007.6-10-year-old boys – minimum 22.6% in 1994, to maximum 33.0% in 2011.
11-15-year-old boys – minimum 26.7% in 1996, to 37.8% in 2013. For girls:
2-5-year-old girls – minimum 18.3% in 1995, to maximum 24.4% in 2008.
6-10-year-old girls – minimum 22.5% in 1996, to maximum 32.2% in 2005.
11-15-year-old girls – minimum 28.3% in 1995, to maximum 36.7% in both 2004 and 2012.
While the NHS also claim that childhood obesity rates in the UK are “stabilising”, that means overall, annual rates did not increase significantly during the second decade, 2004 to 2013. Though the childhood obesity rate is reaching a point of equilibrium where it is not increasing, it is not decreasing either (at least for now).
Obesity is caused by 4 primary factors.
1. The biology of the individual (metabolism, genetics, ill health)
2. Low levels of physical activity.
3. High (or unhealthy) food consumption.
4. Psychology of the individual (motivation to eat healthy and exercise).
Obviously, it’d be very difficult to tackle the biological factors. The other factors can be addressed, however. It’s been psychologically proven that the best kind of reinforcement (way of motivating someone to do something) is positive reinforcement, rewarding them for completing an action. This reward can be something physical or even simply saying “well done”. This is opposed to negative reinforcement, like angrily yelling at someone for not doing something. With this in mind, theoretically, the solution is to positivity motivate children to exercise. So what’re the best ways to do that? According to the Mirror (2015) “65 per cent of 8-11 year olds in the UK own a smartphone”. This means that they have internet access, which means they have access to online media (websites, videos, apps, games ect).
What’s already available then? A new popular smartphone application is Change4Life’s “Sugar Smart” app (https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/change4life-sugar-smart/id1015850256?mt=8). Aimed at young children and parents, the app calculates how much sugar is in a drink or food item and gives the user an allowance of how much sugar they are allowed. Though this app may be great at calculating sugar, which is a great start, it doesn’t account for carbohydrates, calories or anything else in fact. Although sugary foods contain lots of sugary carbohydrates, the amount of carbohydrates in burgers and chips (for example) can be very large while not necessarily containing much sugar (unless you go to McDonald’s). Carbohydrates turn into glucose, which your body burns immediately or converts to glycogen to be stored in the muscles and liver for between meals. If you eat more calories from carbs or other sources than your body can use, the cells store the excess as fat. With this in-mind, although “Sugar Smart” is a good start, as sugars are one type of carbohydrate, this app doesn’t address the total issue.
While looking for games aimed at children, inspiring them to be healthier, I found HealthEating.org. The website has a selection of games aimed at teaching children about exercise and nutrition (http://www.healthyeating.org/Healthy-Kids/Kids-Games-Activities.aspx). Despite having a ton of great info on it, the games are outdated and boring. After 30 seconds of playing I was bored very quickly, so imagine a child’s attention span. I think these games focus very heavily on education, but forget to be entertaining. There needs to be more motive to play instead of only education, otherwise interest is lots and it’s unlikely that much learning will be done. So what could improve these games? For a start the graphics are really boring. More thought-out colours would make the games more visually appealing and interesting to watch, and it wouldn’t hurt to have a character that the player can sympathise with. The gameplay isn’t very rewarding or exciting. I personally wouldn’t use the style of play that these games use, click based games aren’t particularly appealing to a younger demographic, this is why I think a more dynamic game would be better. A more dynamic game where the education is more subtle would be more effective, as it would be more enticing to play.
Browsing YouTube for videos’s that inspire children to be more active, I found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4eueDYPTIg
While it’s pretty annoying, according to the comments young children seem to like it. The motion graphics have pretty clear instructions and is very easy to grasp. While I can’t fault it for that, I think this is aimed at children aged 3-7, therefore it doesn’t appeal to children aged around 8-15. I understand that this is probably intentional, but it’s still an issue. How could this be more universal then? The graphics and animation are very childish, but to make them more mature, let’s say, may mean cutting out the lower age demographic. So maybe approaching this from a different angle is necessary. An straight-up exercise animation may not be the best way to catch the attention of a wider audience. But what would appeal to a wider audience? Perhaps a character that is easier for them all to relate to, instead of these dancing munchkins. Oh, and definitely not head, shoulder, knees and toes. Maybe a funny/ cool character who is sporty to teach children about healthy living would be more fun. He, she or they could teach children about the dos and don’t about being healthy.
Also, I found this while browsing Behance:
While the characters in it look like they’re aimed at an older demographic and not really happens other than a display of simple exercises, the animation itself is fun and straight to the point. The concept is quite appealing and may prove to be a good piece of stimuli.
Bonus! A great tutorial for character animation inside After Effects and Illustrator: https://www.behance.net/gallery/30341405/A-bit-of-character-animation
Though I know I shouldn’t necessarily start looking into platforms for a product before the concept is complete, I’ve been experimenting in the game engine Unity. I wanted to see what the engine was capable of and how I may (or may not) at least incorporate it into my product.