Development of a Game Type Food Education System Using a Cell Phone Camera

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a food education system that utilizes a cell phone camera. As eating habits have become rich, a lot of consequent problems have been pointed out. To overcome them, people need to monitor their eating habits and learn how to improve eating habits. The distinctive features of our system are as follows: (1) accumulation and understanding of meal records using photos and comments, (2) learning by reflecting on one’s eating histories, (3) learning by comparing one’s history with those of others, (4) knowledge acquisition by quizzes and explanations, and (5) increasing motivation by a point-based game system. The results of our experiment have confirmed that our system works as we expected and that participants could improve their eating habits by learning about food and meals, and by reflecting on their own eating habits through the learning activities in our system.