A Craft Approach to Health Awareness in Children

Children in the United States are increasingly at risk for a vast array of health problems due to poor dietary habits and lack of physical activity. In recent years, a burgeoning landscape of wearable and mobile health technologies in the form of activity trackers and fitness applications have focused on addressing this problem. While these solutions have had some measure of success with children, there is also evidence that youngsters are not readily adopting the types of fitness implements that adults find useful. In this paper, we present a computational toolkit that blends craft and health, permitting children to craft their own tangible health visualizations based on data from an accompanying wearable device. We also present the results of an encouraging 2-month study conducted with middle school children. The results suggest that craft could potentially serve as a gateway to healthful thinking in children.