Technology-based intervention for healthy lifestyle promotion in Italian adolescents.

INTRODUCTION: Healthy lifestyle promotion programs are essential to prevent metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes. Adolescents could represent the ideal target population especially using serious web games. OBJECTIVE: To test the improvement of knowledge about healthy nutrition in adolescents and to analyze participants' enjoyment in playing the web game "Gustavo in Gnam's Planet" in comparison with a leisure web game. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Sixty-five adolescents were engaged in three supervised group sessions. Measures about healthy food knowledge and games' enjoyment were collected during the three stages of assessment. RESULTS: After playing Gustavo in Gnam's Planet, participants significantly improved their knowledge on a healthy diet, compared to the recreational web games; whereas the level of fun experienced while playing the recreational and the educational games was not significantly different. CONCLUSIONS: Gustavo in Gnam's Planet is an important promising tool, with entertainment property, to promote a healthy lifestyle in Italian adolescents.

Preventing Adolescents' Diabesity: Design, Development, and First Evaluation of "Gustavo in Gnam's Planet".

OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to design, develop, and evaluate a game for health, "Gustavo in Gnam's Planet" ("Gustavo"), aimed to improve knowledge on healthy foods and to increase consumption of healthy foods. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Eighty-three high school students were enrolled in the study. The game was designed and developed by a multidisciplinary team. Behavioral change theories were adopted to guide the design of the health messages. Participants were assessed about food frequency, healthy food knowledge, and the game's interest. RESULTS: Forty-seven subjects (mean age, 14.9±1.0 years; 72.3 percent males) completed the study. At posttest, participants showed significant higher scores (i.e., increased knowledge) in the questionnaire on knowledge of healthy foods (70.0±9.2 versus 71.3±10.0 for pretest and posttest, respectively; P<0.05). Improvements in healthy eating habits were also detected: higher frequency of consumption during a week of white meat (1 [1-2] versus 2 [1-2]; P=0.01), eggs (1 [1-1] versus 1 [1-2]; P=0.01], and legumes (1 [0-1] versus 1 [1-2]; P=0.03) and lower frequency of consumption of sugar-containing packaged snacks (1 [0-1] versus 0 [0-1]; P=0.009). Most of the participants found the game easy to use and clear in its content. Half of the participants found the game interesting. CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that "Gustavo" is a promising tool for health education, in schools or in other environments. Limitations of the study and future directions are discussed.