Digital Gaming for Nutritional Education: A Survey on Preferences, Motives, and Needs of Children and Adolescents

Sophie Laura Holzmann; Felicitas Dischl; Hanna Schäfer; Georg Groh; Hans Hauner; Christina Holzapfel

doi:10.2196/10284

Digital Gaming for Nutritional Education: A Survey on Preferences, Motives, and Needs of Children and Adolescents

JMIR Form Res. 2019 Feb 13;3(1):e10284. doi: 10.2196/10284.

Authors

Sophie Laura Holzmann¹, Felicitas Dischl¹, Hanna Schäfer², Georg Groh², Hans Hauner^{1

3}, Christina Holzapfel¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Nutritional Medicine, Else Kroener-Fresenius-Center for Nutritional Medicine, University Hospital "Klinikum rechts der Isar", Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
² Research Group Social Computing, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich, Garching, Germany.
³ Nutritional Medicine Unit, Institute for Food and Health, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany.

PMID: 30758290
PMCID: PMC6391648
DOI: 10.2196/10284

Abstract

Background: Use of novel information and communication technologies are frequently discussed as promising tools to prevent and treat overweight and obesity in children and adolescents.

Objective: This survey aims to describe the preferences, motives, and needs of children and adolescents regarding nutrition and digital games.

Methods: We conducted a survey in 6 secondary schools in the southern region of Germany using a 43-item questionnaire. Questions referred to preferences, motives, and needs of children and adolescents regarding nutrition and digital games. In addition, knowledge regarding nutrition was assessed with 4 questions. We collected self-reported sociodemographic and anthropometric data. Descriptive statistical analyses were performed using SPSS.

Results: In total, 293 children and adolescents participated in the study, with ages 12-18 years (137 girls, 46.8%), weight 30.0-120.0 (mean 60.2 [SD 13.2]) kg, and height 1.4-2.0 (mean 1.7 [SD 0.1]) m. A total of 5.5% (16/290) correctly answered the 4 questions regarding nutrition knowledge. Study participants acquired digital nutritional information primarily from the internet (166/291, 57.0%) and television (97/291, 33.3%), while school education (161/291, 55.3%) and parents or other adults (209/291, 71.8%) were the most relevant nondigital information sources. Most participants (242/283, 85.5%) reported that they regularly play digital games. More than half (144/236, 61.0%) stated that they play digital games on a daily basis on their smartphones or tablets, and almost 70% (151/282, 66.5%) reported playing digital games for ≤30 minutes without any interruption. One-half of respondents (144/280, 51.4%) also stated that they were interested in receiving information about nutrition while playing digital games.

Conclusions: This survey suggests that nutrition knowledge in children and adolescents might be deficient. Most children and adolescents play digital games and express interest in acquiring nutritional information during digital gameplay. A digital game with a focus on sound nutrition could be a potential educational tool for imparting nutrition knowledge and promoting healthier nutrition behaviors in children and adolescents.

Keywords: adolescents; children; communication; mobile phone; motives; needs; nutrition; obesity; overweight; preferences; serious games; survey.

©Sophie Laura Holzmann, Felicitas Dischl, Hanna Schäfer, Georg Groh, Hans Hauner, Christina Holzapfel. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (http://formative.jmir.org), 13.02.2019.