HEALTH-E-EATER: DINNERTIME COMPANION ROBOT & MAGIC PLATE FOR IMPROVING EATING HABITS IN CHILDREN FROM LOW-INCOME FAMILIES

Abstract: Obesity causes physical and mental health problems (e.g., high blood pressure, diabetes, and depression). Currently, 1 in 3 American children are overweight or obese, and the prevalence of this issue is increasing. Disproportionately affected are children from low-income families. As unhealthy eating habits are the primary driver of this epidemic, we designed Health-e-Eater - a system for encouraging children aged 2-5 from low-income families to eat healthy food, leading to better nutritional intake and the development of healthy eating habits. Health-e-Eater is a low-cost system consisting of a magic plate and a robotic companion, which motivates and educates during dinnertime.
Keywords: Social computing, Human Robot Interaction, Robots to counter Obesity.

Citation: Natasha Randall, Swapna Joshi, and Xiaohang Liu. 2018. Health-e-Eater: Dinnertime Companion Robot and Magic Plate for Improving Eating Habits in Children from Low-Income Families. In Companion of the 2018 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 361-362.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3173386.3177828

Conducted at: SICE, Indiana University Bloomington

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