Copyright

Harvard Graduate School of Education

Summary

A multi-platform tool to help students make healthy eating choices, and understand/adopt healthy nutritional habits they will take with them after they no longer use the tool.

Description

Students are faced with countless decisions every day that affect their nutritional health; this is increasingly true of secondary students who are becoming more autonomous, independent young adults. Traditional classroom instruction about nutrition and healthy eating styles rarely transfers to personal habits and has a minimal impact on real-time eating choices made by students. UFOOD, our proposed innovation, has the power to change this situation and help empower students to take control of their own nutritional choices in the dining hall in order to live a healthier life. UFOOD will help students learn about nutrition, set personal eating goals, navigate the dining hall menus to create a balanced diet, create a community of students invested, in nutrition all through its unique multi-tier approach to learning and extensive use of emerging digital technology. UFOOD is not only unique because of its innovative use of both internet and mobile phone technology, but also because it is based on solid learning theory, commissioning students as active agents in constructing their own understanding of nutrition. The goal is to empower students with the tools and knowledge they need to make healthy food choices in the context of their dining hall.

How it might be used

Mary, 14

After an orientation to UFOOD, at the beginning of the school year, Mary visited the UFOOD website and creating an individual account, which included a personal profile of general information about herself. There is the option to enter very specific information about her weight, body mass index, health goals, and so on, but since she is just getting started, Mary elected to just go with the general daily nutritional goals and sets this option as a preference in her profile. Mary is now ready to use her web-enabled mobile phone to help her make food choices in the dining hall. When she goes to make a food choice, Mary takes a picture of the QR tag. The UFOOD interface then displays suggested additions to the meal Mary might add, in order for it to be considered a balanced meal. The UFOOD web space illustrates her choices over time. At the lunchroom table, Mary chats about her meal choices with her friends about their meal choices. Her friend points out that she no longer feels bad about picking a cheeseburger because UFOOD has helped her to make other healthy choices throughout the day that has helped her eat in a more balanced manner.

Contact

Jennifer Groff

jgroff@mit.edu