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Games and Gamification for Healthy Behaviours: The Experience of PEGASO Fit 4 Future

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eHealth 360°

Abstract

Challenging teenagers in the context of their own areas of interest, Pegaso Fit 4 Future - aims to promote sustainable behaviours geared towards achieving healthy lifestyles. Behaviour-change techniques are applied as a preventative measure to accomplish positive behaviour change outcomes. Pegaso Fit 4 Future is a EU funded project whose objective is the development of a behaviour change platform targeting teenagers in preventing obesity and related comorbidities. The overall approach is based on three main elements: a Smartphone as central element and agent for behaviour change (through a set of coordinated apps); a sensors system for self-monitoring; games and gamified approach to support user engagement and awareness. The paper describes the project focusing on the gaming aspects. Games have been identified as key element in the PEGASO strategy since its conception. After the initial requirements definition phase, a threefold approach to gaming has been adopted in order to address in an integrated strategy the following dimensions of behaviour change: motivational, social and educational aspects. This paper describes this aspect with three different mini-game developed under the project.

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Acknowledgments

This paper is partly based on the work performed within the context of the PEGASO project. The PEGASO project is co-funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme. PEGASO is part of the cluster of projects in the ICT for health area; it has started in December 2013 and will run for 42 months. The author wishes to thank all the project partners for their contribution to the discussion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Maria Renata Guarneri & Paolo Perego

Authors
  1. Maria Renata Guarneri
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  2. Paolo Perego
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Maria Renata Guarneri .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Informatics in mHealth, National Technical University of Athens, Zografou, Greece

    Kostas Giokas

  2. Budapest University of Technology, Budapest, Hungary

    Laszlo Bokor

  3. University of Glasgow, Glaswow, United Kingdom

    Frank Hopfgartner

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© 2017 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering

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Guarneri, M.R., Perego, P. (2017). Games and Gamification for Healthy Behaviours: The Experience of PEGASO Fit 4 Future. In: Giokas, K., Bokor, L., Hopfgartner, F. (eds) eHealth 360°. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 181. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49655-9_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49655-9_14

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-49654-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-49655-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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