Nutritional Education and Promotion of Healthy Eating Behaviors Among Mexican Children Through Video Games: Design and Pilot Test of FoodRateMaster

Autor: Espinosa-Curiel, Ismael Edrein, Pozas-Bogarin, Edgar Efrén, Lozano-Salas, Jorge Luis, Martínez-Miranda, Juan, Delgado-Pérez, Edwin Emeth, Estrada-Zamarron, Lizeth Stefania
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Zdroj: JMIR Serious Games, Vol 8, Iss 2, p e16431 (2020)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2291-9279
DOI: 10.2196/16431
Popis: BackgroundChildhood obesity has risen dramatically in recent decades, reaching epidemic levels. Children need guidance on and support for maintaining a healthy diet and physical activity to ensure that they grow appropriately and develop healthy eating habits. Serious video games have shown positive effects on promoting the nutritional knowledge, and eating attitudes and behaviors of children; however, research about the usefulness of such games with younger children (8-10 years old) is sparse. ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to design and test the serious video game FoodRateMaster targeting children between 8 and 10 years old. The game includes nutritional information and behavior change techniques to help children improve their knowledge of healthy and unhealthy foods, increase their intake of healthy food, and reduce their intake of ultraprocessed food. In addition, FoodRateMaster was designed as an active game to promote physical activity. MethodsAn interdisciplinary team developed FoodRateMaster following an iterative methodology based on a user-centered design. A total of 60 participants (mean age 9 years, SD 0.8; 53% male) completed 12 individual gaming sessions in 6 weeks. A food knowledge questionnaire and a food frequency questionnaire were completed before and after game play. In addition, 39 of the participants’ parents answered a parent perception questionnaire after the game play. ResultsParticipants showed increased food knowledge from pregame (mean 56.9, SD 10.7) to postgame play (mean 67.8, SD 10.7; P
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals