Designing for Healthy Food Practices: Challenges and Opportunities for Changing People’s Eating Behavior Using Persuasive Technology

Food habits are widely acknowledged to have a major impact on health and well-being. However, changing them remains an incredibly challenging endeavor. In this paper, we present the preliminary findings of the project Promoting Healthy and Sustainable Eating through Interactive and Explainable AI Methods (PHaSE), which aims to support individuals in adopting healthier and more sustainable diets. We begin by reviewing previous efforts to design technology aimed at changing people’s food behavior. Through an analysis of 20 Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) papers, we highlight that current technologies rarely support sense-making or consider the lived experience of behavior change. Instead, they often place significant emphasis on the target behavior to be modified. Next, we recount the findings from three design workshops, where participants identified several conversational design strategies that an agent should employ to effectively influence behavior. These include showing empathy and providing suggestions that are clear, trustworthy, and actionable. Additionally, the conversational agent should offer personalized advice that accounts for individual differences, while maintaining a friendly tone and avoiding a prescriptive approach.