Engaging Teen-agers in the Adoption of Healthy Lifestyles for the Prevention of Obesity and Related Co-morbidities The Approach of PEGASO

摘要

Obesity and other lifestyle-related illness are among the top healthcare challenges in Europe. Obesity alone accounts for up to 7% of healthcare costs in the EU, as well as wider economy costs associated with lower productivity, lost output and premature death. Obesity in younger age is an alarming predictor for obesity in adulthood, but also entails short term health complications in juvenile age along with greater risk of social and psychological problems. Knowing how to stay healthy is not enough to motivate individuals, and especially teen-agers, to adopt healthy lifestyles. In view of this, PEGASO – recently funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union in ICT for Health, will develop a multi-dimensional cross-disciplinary ICT system that will exploit social gaming to motivate behavioural changes towards healthier lifestyles. PEGASO is based on three main features: individual & environmental monitoring; feedback to the user, for alternative lifestyles; social connectivity, encouraging involvement in social network experience sharing and social engagement. For the development of the PEGASO system and in order to ensure engagement of the target population, a user centred approach will be used based on social and networked games and together with online education.