Our project is called “Who’s ordering your food?”. This project aims to help targeted users realize different factors affecting their choice of food and notice how easy it is for us to be misled by social media. We come up with this idea when noticing many female classmates check the nutrition chart very carefully before they buy foods and snacks. And with our research, we find many ways how social media influence people’s food choice. The most common existed scientific studies in this field suggests that social media influence people’s food choice in two ways. The first is the prevailing image of “beauty” and “health” and the trend to be on a diet and lose weight. This fit/slim/skinny being beautiful is embedded into people’s minds to make them conscious of calorie intake and contributes to a lot of eating disorder cases 1, 2,3,4 .
The second is the advertising and scientific reports revealed to the public (this is a tricky point because people assume what they see is true however it might only be partially real and there are chances that even scientific studies are sponsored by certain manufacture) 5.
Despite social media, who you eat with matters a lot in food choice subconsciously. For example, family dinner is often used as a therapy for patients of eating disorder because eating with family usually means eating more healthy 6. Consider the different aspects mentioned above which affects people’s food choice, we created different scenarios which enables users to choose food for the character on the screen after watching a short video as “priming”. And as users realize how their choices differ after watching different videos, they will be more conscious when they later choose their foods and will not be influenced by social media that easily and this can avoid a lot healthy-harming behaviors. Since young girls are the most affected group in terms of changing diet because of external factors, they are the main target of this project although this project basically aims at everyone who want to improve their diet as target user.
Opening with the view of a single young girl in a restaurant, users are expected to choose from the menu board a dish or a meal for the girl. After this initial choice, users enter the first scenario where they will be presented with a short clip about diet and weight control (such as the following). We are considering whether to add a captured cam picture/live video afterward, might be and might not. Afterward, user will be asked to make the food choice again. The second scenario will use a food advertising clip or a food science news clip where the third scenario primes with family or friends. To make sure users fully get our message but trying to make this project more interactive and thought-provoking instead of lesson teaching, hints will be given during the experience. A note of random related information (an array will be created for that) will be presented at the end of each scenario (e.g. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away…but only an apple for a day sends you to the doctor”) and a sound response will be given consider the choice. We plan to have all the video clips ready (create the arrays if possible) and do the fabrication work next week and start coding after coming back from Thanksgiving Break.
The preparatory research influence the way how we give our message. While this is kind of an educational project, it would be reactive instead of interactive if we just try to have the same result for all inputs and that is a failure in our midterm project. So we are not trying to tell users directly how different factors might change people’s choice and the result but letting users discover that during their experience. It is possible that some users would be conscious and not affected by any of the factors. This is also good and our response given will only consider whether his/her choice is healthy and provide suggestion base on that. Therefore, each user has their personal experience and need to really think and get involved during the process. Professor Lin has recommended us a lot art projects related with food and these all put emphasis on personal experience and communication even with the same food so we also try to create more private responsive experiences. We hope this experience will raise users’ awareness when they choose food since once a person has awareness and is alert about what will affect his/her choice, he/she will result in more rational choices and this can help them getting healthy (less likely to be obese or have eating disorders).
Notes & Resources:
- The following article (in Chinese) is a study on China’s losing fat industry which argues why many people choose to lose weight. Scholars argue that “losing weight” is promoted as a fashion in large cities like Shanghai and Beijing which however leads to bad consequences in terms of consumers’ health. https://wenku.baidu.com/view/1e3c8503bed5b9f3f90f1c2c.html
2.The following article (in Chinese) is a report which suggests many young girls are indulged in use of meal replacement powder/shake (e.g. the left image) influenced by advertisements who said these powders can substitute meals and are more healthy. However it only functions in losing weight and causes many hospitalized cases. http://www.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2018-06/27/c_1123040998.htm
3.Concurrent and Prospective Analyses of Peer, Television and Social Media Influences on Body Dissatisfaction, Eating Disorder Symptoms and Life Satisfaction in Adolescent Girls https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/S10964-012-9898-9
4. Body Image, Media, and Eating Disorders https://link.springer.com/article/10.1176/appi.ap.30.3.257
5.Can Social Media Influence What Your Child Eats? – Study confirms social media can sway kids to eat junk food https://health.clevelandclinic.org/can-social-media-influence-what-your-child-eats/
6. 9 Scientifically Proven Reasons to Eat Dinner as a Family https://www.goodnet.org/articles/9-scientifically-proven-reasons-to-eat-dinner-as-family