Take a Bite Out of ARFID!
An Keopradith — Interviewer/Researcher
Marcella Huang — Interviewer
Aaron Carter — Product Designer and Survey Developer
Ned Harrison — Product Designer and Survey Developer
Credit to https://www.claritychi.com/understanding-arfid-its-more-than-just-picky-eating/
ARFID is an eating disorder that greatly affects those afflicted. It causes a lack of interest in food, can make certain textures of food unappealing, and cause health consequences due to a lack of nutrients and calories. Currently, there is no cure for ARFID, and therapy is typically the only option many have to combat it. That being said, therapy can be very expensive, and in many cases insurance will not cover the costs. ARFID can make you feel isolated, and it can be difficult to find a community where you feel comfortable. These problems compound on eachother, and can lead to many other resulting issues. Our solution is a VR headset that will allow those with ARFID to engage in virtual therapy. The headset will aid in exposure therapy, helping to alleviate the financial burdens usually in association. The headset will have a companion application, which will have links to a variety of online communities, where one can find advice, knowledge, and a sense of belonging.
In order to gain a better understanding of the ARFID (Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) community needs, we discovered a Discord support group that focuses on connecting other people with ARFID together. This community allows those labeled as “picky eaters” to share, learn and support each other on ways to handle their eating disorders better. Since the subjects were organized in different channels in the forum, we were able to go through many conversations between members regarding treatments, safe foods, triggers, and more from their personal experiences…
This activity helps us gather a good amount of valuable information and gain a better comprehension of what it’s like to live with ARFID. Next, we decided to choose our primary research method by interviewing people with ARFID. We think that this is the most effective way to explore the target users’ opinions, behavior, experiences, stories. We were also able to contact the moderators of the channel and conduct interviews with six different participants. Most of the participants were within our target age range, but opening our discussions to older members of the group gave us unique insight into their years of experience battling ARFID. These participants mostly live with family but have been on their own at some point in their lives. There are no common themes between their occupations or upbringing history, which shows it could be anyone struggling with an eating disorder. This is further emphasized by every interviewees that having an eating disorder is not a choice. Many of the participants stick with environments they are familiar with, especially when it comes to cooking or eating. Since there is a lot of stigma surrounding eating disorders, many participants avoid social settings that put pressure on them to eat.
The first interesting piece that emerged during our design research was how we were going to address the two main issues of personal/human connection and the technical elements of ARFID like taste and texture of foods. We needed a product that could make an impact on both elements. We found common themes of therapy and exposure therapy as one of the best ways to treat ARFID and so we tried to make a product that focused on that aspect. Another surprising thing was that most medical professionals have very limited knowledge on ARFID since it is one of the lesser known eating disorders. There is a similar theme on being misunderstood and people not having a lot of exposure on the topic of ARFID. Instead of being seen as having an eating disorder, people would just assume that they were being a picky eater/childish. We considered using an AI therapist to increase accessibility but we think that the personal connection of a real human was too important to not have.
The second interesting piece was how most of the interviewees had very similar backgrounds and stories. They all seem to have struggled with finding a therapist/getting into therapy. Most of them have autism and other disorders that make life harder for them in general. Most of them struggle in having jobs that have to do with working with other people. All of these factors influenced us to have an app interface that also connects them together in a support group. They can all relate to each others experiences and all of them have said that the support group is one of the most important things they had to deal with ARFID.
From our research, most of our interview participants stated that having a great support system and access to therapy are the most effective ways to battle ARFID. Therefore, our design features a combined system of a phone application and VR goggles that will primarily focus on helping connect people with the ARFID community and give instant access to therapy. Through our phone application and VR goggles, users will have the option to easily see and connect with those individuals from the community who can accompany each other through their current tasks such as cooking, eating, or trying new foods.
Furthermore, the phone application will also equip users with trackers that log their moods, goals, achievements, and thoughts. These activities will provide them with an outlet to assist in creating a structure at their own comfortable pace. In addition, this app includes features that record your safe foods and find locations where they are available. Having this information will make it easier for users to find alternative foods that are similar enough to their safe foods, giving them room to be exposed to new textures, smells, and tastes. It also allows the user the freedom to either generate a plan or create one on their own.
Shown below how the App interface would look and function.
