TeenPower: Measuring the effectiveness of an intervention program and engaging adolescents towards physical activities using location-aware gamification

摘要

Adolescents, reportedly, easily adopt a sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy behaviors easily carried into adulthood. Prevention is one of the few viable ways to contain the current epidemic percentages of overweight and obesity. The TeenPower Project has created an intervention program that relies on a mHealth platform to engage teenagers into embracing healthier lifestyle behaviors. Although the program is already fully deployed in some schools, further work is necessary to continue to encourage adolescents into long lasting behavioral changes. It is necessary to measure the effectiveness of this intervention program by analyzing the data generated by the adolescent's usage of the platform. This analysis may also support the decision-making process of health professionals when planning the future of the intervention program. On the other hand, gamification, the use of game-like rewards and incentives, paired with desired behaviors to increase motivations, is starting to be integrated in the mobile application as a way to engage to adolescents in the platform.