Team

Trevor z Hallstein

17:43, Aug 14, 2015

Here are some things out of tulane you might be interested in:

"Through innovative nutrition curriculum and hands-on training in the culinary arts, The Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at Tulane University seeks to better prepare future physicians to serve and heal patients and communities." http://tmedweb.tulane.edu/mu/teachingkitchen/

"Chef Leah Sarris, program director at the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at Tulane University in New Orleans, describes an innovative program for medical students focusing on the role of cooking and nutrition in health care." http://www.healio.com/endocrinology/diabetes-education/news/online/%7B0b327280-6715-4850-94b0-77149898976f%7D/video-chef-integrates-food-and-medicine-in-promotion-of-cardiometabolic-health

Team

Trevor z Hallstein

18:30, Aug 13, 2015

Hi Logan,

I had a nutritionist and chef read over some of the healthy challenge ideas. This feedback is for the Zocalo Food Court idea, but some of the references and input is relevant to yours as well.
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Upon quick glance, they are using outdated food recommendations. Now, http://www.choosemyplate.gov/ is the USDA's recommended meal gauge. This is not a perfect model, because water is not on this and not everyone can tolerate dairy or grains, but it's a huge improvement over the pyramid. MyPlate is what registered dieticians push for the USDA, which is influenced by the dairy, meat and grain industries. It's a good next step in moving from processed foods to a real food diet.

Showing people how to compose a plate and eat so they are eating healthfully and are satiated is more useful than counting calories. It's not the calories - it's the food choices that make the biggest impact. Counting calories is very similar to weight watchers and that model doesn't work or take into account the types of food being eaten.

Think about how change happens, how habits change... A first tier change might be giving up processed foods for a week, second tier might be eating 5-7 servings of vegetables and fruits (with fruits no more than 35% of that) every day for a week, then upping that to 8-9 servings per day. This is something that can be tracked in an app and executed in that food court, replace refined carbs (bread, pasta) with whole grains or starchy veg (sweet potatoes, potatoes for a week and all of these build upon themselves... these types challenges can lead to lasting changes.

Time is the biggest barrier to eating well since it takes time to plan, shop and cook. Perhaps they eat a meal at the store and then pack their breakfast, lunch and snacks for the next day, which would help them compose an appropriate plate for each meal. The market would like that, because they would keep the $ in store.

Perhaps with the 20 dishes in the hot/cold bar, there are graphics/infographics recommended combinations to create the perfect plates, get their targets number of veg/fruit servings and/or flavor combinations for those that need guidance (newbies) or for those who need help controlling how much they take. The food would also have to taste great.

To change the focus from weight loss to how they feel would be an interesting metric to track if only food is being tracked with the app. Food is not the only factor in weight loss - so is movement/exercise, stage in life and stress levels.

I have to get back to my work, but these are just some of my thoughts on this idea from a quick glance. I don't know about human centered design or at least I don't know how IDEO teaches it. Interesting.

Team

Trevor z Hallstein

11:28, Aug 10, 2015

Hi Logan,

The ideas of involving grocery stores as places to encourage healthy meal choices and the social network aspect of the weight loss challenges are two strong core features I see in your idea. I would be interested to see some refinement around the inter-relationship between the stores and the weight loss social network. Are they two separate ideas, are they part of one seamless idea?

I think there is power in the gamification, challenge, and social network aspect of your idea, but in some background reading on 'the biggest loser' there are some concerns reporters have highlighted. You might want to reflect on that, think about what you would do different, and decide if 'the biggest loser' is a good model to leverage, or if you might want to come up with your own marketing identity and distance yourself from the show (after reading these accounts). It mostly seems to center around the long-term negative impacts (damaged joints, tendons, etc.), questionable adoption by contestants of healthier lifestyles, and the mental abuse inflicted by the trainers:

http://nypost.com/2015/01/18/contestant-reveals-the-brutal-secrets-of-the-biggest-loser/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Biggest_Loser_(U.S._TV_series)

Team

Martin Lopez Diaz, Jr

02:13, Aug 13, 2015

"El" Loser? Veggie churros?

Team

Kate Rushton

16:34, Aug 08, 2015

Is this an added complication, but could the recipes be shared as video clips? I know that I personally am terrible at following recipes and prefer to watch them on YouTube? I love the look and feel of your idea.

Team

Philip Moore

11:01, Aug 03, 2015

A couple of thoughts:
1) Incentives for local grocers: Upsell more organic produce. Organic produce is a key component of a successful weight loss diet and they could use branded point-of-purchase materials to encourage more shoppers to choose the higher quality/higher margin items.

2) Bluetooth connection to the scales as an alternative/complement to the rewards card. Once the bluetooth connection to the scale was established, the device ID could match up data from health apps (fitbit, etc) to the "official" weights collected in the stores. This would also become an additional incentive for store participation. Only weigh-ins at an "official" scale would count. Using bluetooth connection between the phone and any of the El Loser Local installed scales also allows multiple store chains to participate without the contestants having to have rewards cars from each grocery chain.

Team

Holly Davis

14:48, Jul 27, 2015

Hello Logan and Team,

Not surprisingly, I like your idea since I posted a somewhat similar idea prior to reading yours (Biggest Loser Family).

A couple of quick questions:
- Many of the metrics in the spider diagrams above would need to be entered by the user. Were you thinking that a user would text those metrics to a certain number to enter that information?
- I have unlimited texting on my smartphone plan, but I have friends who pay by the text. For users who pay each time they text, is there a way to provide an avenue for then to participate without incurring a huge phone bill? Provide a companion website for entering data? I really like the SMS angle since, as you mention in your comments below, it is great way to reach a very large number of people even in the poorest areas. Perhaps a better solution than a companion website would be an agreement with the local phone companies to allow free texting as part of the game/TV show (perhaps in exchange for some free advertising on the show).

Team

Jim Robertson

13:49, Jul 29, 2015

Some random thoughts...
Supermarkets should also like the idea of the gamification participants checking in regularly for weigh-in at the store. From a business perspective, customer visits are a good thing.

In addition to the in-store scale, for those participants who have their own Withings or similar scale, it might be possible for them to use that. For example if their own scale can be configured to post to Twitter, Loser-Local scheduled daily process could scrape that data via Twitter API.

Is there a way that the idea of "slow and steady wins the race" can be worked into the gamification scheme? Somehow reward for taking it off and keeping it off?

Team

Katherine Tan

15:53, Jul 29, 2015

Hi!

I saw your post on the DC open IDEO meetup and this idea seems great. A few thoughts to take or leave:
- I think this idea could be even more impactful if perhaps in the 2nd phase, it expands beyond the individual into a family healthy lifestyle challenge. I think this addresses several things - first it adds to the sustainability, because you are more likely to keep the healthy lifestyle if the ppl around you reinforce it; secondly, it increases the appeal to grocers I think, because you could do a lot of deals/promotions around the "healthy family meals" concept; thirdly I think culturally in the communities you're targeting, family plays a key role values wise and from a behavior change perspective, and it could make for interesting TV!
- I think you could do some targeted live events at the grocery stores to build excitement around the concepts and also bring more ppl to the store and make the benefits tangible for the stores. For instance, you could do a "5 minute healthy shopping challenge" - who can put together the healthiest tastiest meal from ingredients picked up in the grocery store within 5 minutes (sort of like a Guys Grocery Games concept). You could have the community attend and give out coupons and other shopping incentives for all those in attendance.
- another "hook" for grocery stores is getting more data on peoples eating/meal preferences. for instance maybe via the website or the sms interface, participants could enter info abt their eating habits and food preferences, and get back customized recipes highlighting items on sale from the partner grocery store -- there are lots of possibilities I think along these lines.
- you could also consider partnering with local gyms (or ymcas and community centers) as a supplement to the grocery stores.

Team

Kafui

19:39, Jul 20, 2015

This is quite an interesting idea Logan! And I Think "El Loser Local" can also can use an app such as the "Jamii App" for contesters to find a friendly support to undertake the challenge. The participants will not then be contesting against each other but will help each other to reach a common goal. What do you think? you can find a brief description of the "Jammi community App" here : https://openideo.com/challenge/healthy-lives/ideas/jamii-app#c-7bfd6267540d750de90a2364bb592d45