1st Phase: Research.. and.. more research!
Mind VS Body
Social Perceptions - Eating Habits
I looked up and read articles about mind and body, as well as external factors such as social expectations and how that form our perceptions. I began to take a closer look into the significant impact they make on younger generations - especially young adults like myself and teenagers. Eating Disorders stood out to me as one of the most common disorders people may experience during their lifetime, due to many underlying psychological reasons, yet there is still a lack of awareness and struggles from both the patients and their loved ones/ supporters.
Workshop - Expert Interviews - Surveys
Workshop goal
Understanding what situations, moods, events that may trigger the beginning of irregular eating habits in a healthy person.
I facilitated a workshop in which activities ranged from group brainstorming to empathetic role-play to quick design challenges. The goal is to identify what cause loss of appetite or absence of hunger among healthy individuals, which may lead to health complications in long term.
1
Group
Brainstorming
Identify the causes of loss of appetite and/or absence of hunger in a healthy individual to see whether they share similarities with early signs of eating disorders.
Insight
Emotional confusion blurs the boundaries between emotional needs and physical needs, in which case, it finds itself being expressed in “hunger”
2
Family
Role-play
Empathize with the role of each character and predict their behaviours in certain situations in order to understand the individual who has eating disorders and the people they interact with on a daily basis.
Insight
What parents may need is education about empathy based approaches and what needed to be done when deal with family members who display early signs of eating disorders.
3
Quick
Design Challenge
Come up with a quick design solution based on list of objects and mentality provided. Solutions should have either immediate effects or long-term impact on a person who is recovering from eating disorders and should be of help when a relapse occur.
Insight
The outcomes show how existing technology can be implemented to help patients during their recovery journey. In addition, there were also approaches towards a better healthcare system for eating disorders while encouraging family, close friends to take innitiatives when an eating disorder case occur.
Expert Interviews
‘‘If people have information and education, they can support their family members and friends to seek treatment before it becomes too problematic, rather than prevention, it is more about awareness that we are talking about.’’
Robyn Shaw - OCADU Health and Wellness Center
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‘‘General doctors lack understanding and awareness of eating disorder. Public Programs have an endless waitlist, while private service is unaffordable for many individuals.’’
Kaitlyn Axelrod- Program Outreach Coordinator at Sheena’s Place
“People stops an ED when they have enough support and when their lives work well enough to stop eating disorder, when they have a reason/meaning to stop it for often times, might be a little bit of addiction. From a design perspective, communication is extremely important. Isolation is a huge issue across the board for ALL mental health illness. Anything that could be of help to that.
Socio-culture factors play a huge role. There are different levels of prevention and intervention, focusing on changing the cultural structure and really looking into the way body is being treated.”
Fiona Downie - Therapist at West End Psychological Services