Diet gamification

And although the problem of malnutrition and excessive weight has not yet reached the domestic expanses, many people are already seriously concerned about their own health and their own diet, which plays an important role in our daily well-being. And today in the application market there are a huge number of different fitness programs that somehow encourage their use. But, IBM, as it is typical for it, decided to take a slightly different path and tied weight loss (or dieting) to the simplest, most understandable and effective way of promotion - the monetization program. The system, which should be finally approved by the US Patent Office in December, offers cash payments to those users who eat right and monitor their physical condition,

The revolution did not happen only in the way of entering data into the system - the user will still need to independently enter data on food, exercises and so on. The inventor of the system is Michael Paolini, told the New York Timesthat his creation can, on the basis of the input data, give valuable recommendations to those who are trying to learn, for example, a vegetarian diet, or other specific nutritional system and, even, are able to pay some kind of “dividends” to parents who monitor what, how and when eating their baby. And although Michael began explaining the reward system by saying that the program offers cash because “everyone understands cash,” he quickly added that any other value system could be used instead of money, from free movie tickets to achievements at Foursquare or FarmVille .

It took Paolini about 10 years to collect all the necessary permits and, finally, now that he is so close to obtaining a patent, the creator is looking for a way to license the system for insurers. According to the engineer, the program developed by him and his colleagues at IBM is able to provide insurers with more accurate information about the client’s profile (his “diet card”), thereby reducing the cost of obtaining the same information through specialized personnel and encouraging those who independently and carefully monitors his own condition. Of course, there is a flip side to the coin - there are certain fears that the employer may want to use the sensitive data of his employee (even if this is unlikely, this possibility exists), other people (mostly skeptical towards insurance companies) say that insurers will try to use such information for the sake of profit. In addition to all of the above, there is always a risk that people will enter incorrect or inaccurate data into the system.

The creator of the service, Michael Paolini, says that all risks must be assessed by a company that wants to implement the IBM program at the very initial stage. At the same time, global statistics indicate that people following a diet generally take it more carefully, and therefore the data they provide will be very accurate and open, partly due to the deep penetration of social media into our lives (in fact , right now, many people know where you are, with whom you are, and probably what you eat): “People post updates of their own weight every day, what they eat or what they like to eat in social media or social groups. They get inspiration from this process, sometimes - valuable recommendations from other members of the community, and sometimes a soft kick in the ass, able to return the “lost sheep” to the originally right path. "

Watch the Inventor’s Corner video in which Michael talks about his system.