Nutrition, Health and Wellness juin 7, 2006
Posted by Postmaster in Devices, Mobile, Nutrition.add a comment
eLab – Nutrition, health and wellness.ppt
Shifting dietary patterns (for example increased consumption of saturated fat) combined with a sedentary lifestyle are proven risk factors for diseases such as obesity, diabetes or cardiovascular disease. In 2001 such chronic diseases contributed approximately 60% of the 56.5 million total reported deaths in the world and it has been projected that, by 2020, chronic diseases will account for almost three-quarters of all deaths worldwide.
Some figures:
- 170 million people worldwide with diabetes
- Worldwide, at least three hundred million adults are obese and at least 155 million school-age children are overweight or obese
- 2% US adults and 5% children suffer from food allergies
The World Health Organization and many actors in the sector of public health are promoting healthy diets as a prevention measure. Beyond these public health problems, more and more people are becoming conscious of nutrition and wellness issues: the global “better for you” foods market reached almost $129 billion in 2004.
Mobile devices and wearable computers will likely become an integrated part of the nutrition, health and wellness approach, especially in the domains of preventive medicine, self-help and activity tracking. In May 2006 the creation of a Bluetooth working group on Medical Devices was anounced, with 19 members including IBM, Intel, Motorola or Philips,whose goal is to expand the use of Bluetooth into the medical, health and fitness markets.
Some possible applications:
- Monitoring blood pressure, glucose level, food intake, etc.
- Tracking exercises, burned calories, etc.
- Reminding patients to take their medicine, suggesting meals (and restaurants), etc.
- Sending data to doctors or intelligent agent
Some examples:
- Dedicated devices measuring burned calories (Bodybugg, Nike+iPod) or keeping track of food and calories intake (CalorieScanner, Salter Nutrition Kitchen Scale, modified Aibo)
- Hundreds of online tools and applications (FitDay, StartYourDiet, Calorie-Count)
- Applications for PDAs (WeightWatchers On-The-Go with 25’000 item food database, Atkins 2Go) or mobile phones (MyFoodPhone, Nutracheck)
- Mobile health monitoring (Lifewatcher(article),site in Japanese, eMediate)
