Booth Id:
BEHA029
Category:
Behavioral and Social Sciences
Year:
2021
Finalist Names:
Wahdani, Ibrahim (School: Jubilee School)
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the spread of many bad health habits, due to quarantines and lockdowns. People were forced to spend hours indoors, with little ability to engage in labor activities has led to worsening eating habits, less physical activity, and more bad health outcomes. Those issues were disregarded through the pandemic. However, these issues will cause long-term problems. To start, The overuse of mobile phones daily, for surfing the internet, gaming, texting, etc. causes major harmful health outcomes, including sleep disturbances, decreased attention, eye-sight issues, headaches, and psychological disorders as it may lead to addictions or withdrawal from human interaction. Secondly, people have started to develop bad eating habits. This will cause obesity-linked co-morbidities such as diabetes and hypertension. To address these two problems, Be Better is an app that focuses on using a behavioral approach to improve people’s habits during these times and ensure positive health outcomes. The app encouraged participants to improve their phone using habits and physical exercise through a challenge and reward system. For instance, to address the overuse of phones, the app challenges users to not exceed a certain time limit spent using their phones each day, and if they committed to this, they get rewarded, and if they didn’t commit to this, they lose the chance of getting the reward. Using a similar approach, the app encourages people to exercise and move by setting a step-count goal each day and a reward for achieving it. As a result of using this behavioral approach, Be Better app will help people develop better habits in a fun and encouraging way and avoid bad health outcomes in the future.