OB CITY-Definition of a Family-Based Intervention for Childhood Obesity Supported by Information and Communication Technologies.
Childhood obesity is becoming one of the 21st century's most important public health problems. Nowadays, the main treatment of childhood obesity is behavior intervention that aims at improve children's lifestyle to arrest the disease. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have not been widely employed in this intervention, and most of existing ICTs systems are not having a long-term effect. The purpose of this paper is to define a system to support family-based intervention through a state-of-the-art analysis of family-based interventions and related technological solutions first, and then using the analytic hierarchy process to derive a childhood obesity family-based behavior intervention model, and finally to provide a prototype of a system called OB CITY. The system makes use of applied behavior analysis, affective computing technologies, as well as serious game and gamification techniques, to offer long term services in all care dimensions of the family-based behavioral intervention aiming to provide positive effects to the treatment of childhood obesity.
Life Supporting Technologies (LifeSTech) Technical University of Madrid Madrid 28040 Spain.
Ruofei
R
Hu
Life Supporting Technologies (LifeSTech) Technical University of Madrid Madrid 28040 Spain.
Jorge
J
Cancela
Life Supporting Technologies (LifeSTech) Technical University of Madrid Madrid 28040 Spain.
Maria Teresa
MT
Arredondo Waldmeyer
Life Supporting Technologies (LifeSTech) Technical University of Madrid Madrid 28040 Spain.
Gloria
G
Cea
Endocrinology Department P. & A. Kyriakou Unit Children's Hospital Athens 11527 Greece.
Elpis-Athina
EA
Vlachopapadopoulou
Unit of Medical Technology and Intelligent Information Systems University of Ioannina Ioannina 45110 Greece.
Dimitrios I
DI
Fotiadis
Life Supporting Technologies (LifeSTech) Technical University of Madrid Madrid 28040 Spain.
Giuseppe
G
Fico
Childhood obesity; affective computing; applied behavior analysis (ABA); behavioral intervention; family-based intervention; gamification; serious games