Gamification diet

And although the problem of unhealthy diet and excessive weight has not yet reached domestic spaces, already very many people are seriously concerned about their own health and their own diet, which plays an important role in our daily well-being. And already today there are a huge number of different fitness programs on the application market, one way or another encouraging their use. But, IBM, as it is peculiar to it, decided to take a slightly different path and tied the weight loss (or diet) to the simplest, most understandable and effective way to promote it - the monetization program. The system, which must finally be approved by the US Patent Office in December, offers cash payments to those users who eat right and monitor their physical condition, while providing real-time feedback back-up on a variety of parameters, such as carbohydrate consumption / protein / calorie intake and so on.

The revolution did not happen only in the way of entering data into the system - the user will still need to independently enter data about food, exercise, and so on. The inventor of the system, Michael Paolini, told the New York Times that, based on the data entered, his work could provide valuable advice to those trying to master, for example, a vegetarian diet, or other specific nutritional system, and even be able to pay peculiar “Dividends” to parents who watch what, how and when their child eats. And although Michael began explaining the reward system by saying that the program offers cash because “everyone understands cash,” he quickly added that instead of money, any other value system could be used, from free movie tickets to achievements at Foursquare or FarmVille .

It took Paolini about 10 years to collect all the necessary permissions 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”), thus allowing to reduce the cost of obtaining the same information through specialized personnel and encouraging those who independently and carefully monitors its own state. Of course, there is also the other side of the coin - there are certain fears that the employer may want to use the sensitive data of his employee (although this is unlikely, such a possibility exists), other people (mostly skeptical about insurance companies) say that that insurers will try to use such information for the sake of obtaining benefits. In addition to all of the above, there is always a risk that people will enter incorrect or inaccurate data into the system.
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The very 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 outset. At the same time, global statistics show that people who follow a diet, in general, treat 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 essence , now, many people know where you are, who you are with and, most likely, what you eat): “People post their own weight updates every day, what they eat or what they like to eat in social media or social groups. They receive inspiration from this process, sometimes - valuable recommendations from other community members, and sometimes even a soft kick in the ass, able to return the “lost sheep” to the initially correct path. ”

Watch the video “Inventor's Corner” in which Michael talks about the system he developed.