Design of Persuasive Technology Intervention for Healthy Lifestyle Change.

在加拿大和世界上许多其他国家，肥胖是一个主要的健康威胁。研究表明，超重或肥胖会增加患心脏病、糖尿病、高血压的风险，在某些情况下还会患癌症。倡导采取旨在影响人们生活方式的预防性干预措施。因此，许多促进健康行为的技术干预措施已经开发出来，如良好的饮食和锻炼。然而，这些干预并不总是成功的，因为使用者的微观行为与他们产生的缓慢但稳定的体重增加之间往往几乎没有联系。这种因果联系的“隐形性”给为问题提供有效的技术解决方案带来了严重困难，因为人类自然而然地受到其行动的直接或可预测的结果的激励。这项研究试图开发一种新的技术模式来说服人们走向健康的行为。该模型将为用户提供他们的行为与其直接和长期后果之间的即时反馈回路。预测模型可以用来预测和可视化在一段时间内任何单一行为对个人生活的影响。为了支持长期的行为改变，这项研究将结合和展示多种进步的衡量标准，并将它们置于更广泛的社会背景中。这将通过开发一种方法来可视化健身的多条路径，以及使用体重和体重指数(BMI)等常规参数、肺活量(VO2)等生物医学统计数据、预测实现目标的进展情况以及共同遵守健身计划的多种方式来想象健康的身体。这项研究的成功完成将影响加拿大人的健康和生活质量，因为它提供了一种技术，可以提供即时反馈，鼓励人们改变健康的行为，转向体育活动和健康饮食。

Obesity is a major health threat in Canada and many other countries worldwide. Studies have shown that being overweight or obese increases the risks of developing heart diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure, and in some cases, cancer. Preventive interventions, aimed at influencing the lifestyle of people, have been advocated. Accordingly, many technological interventions that promote healthy behaviors, such as eating well and exercising, have been developed. However, these interventions are not always successful because there is often little or no link made between the micro behaviors of the user and the slow, but steady, weight gains they produce. This "invisibility" of the cause-effect linkage creates serious difficulties for generating an effective technological solution to the problem because humans are naturally motivated by immediate or predictive results of their actions. This research seeks to develop a new technological model for persuading people towards healthy behavior. The model will provide the user an instant feedback loop between their behavior and its immediate and long-term consequences. The predictive model can be used to project and visualize the effect of any single behavior on an individual life over a period of time. To support long-term behaviour change, this research will incorporate and display multiple measures of progress, and situate them in a wider social context. This will be achieved by developing a method of visualizing multiple paths to fitness, and multiple ways of imagining a fit body using conventional parameters such as weight and Body Mass Index (BMI); bio-medical statistics like pulmonary capacity (VO2); projection of progress towards goals; and compliance with a fitness routine together. Successful completion of this research will impact the health and quality of life of Canadians by providing technology that provides instant feedback to encourage healthy behavioral change toward physical activity and healthy eating.