Project description
Preventing the onset of obesity among children
Childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions, with 224 million school-age children worldwide affected by this health issue. The prevalence among children has tripled in many European countries since 1980, presenting a significant paediatric public health concern. In this context, the EU-funded OCARIoT project is stepping in with an innovative Internet of Things (IoT) solution aimed at promoting healthy eating and physical activity behaviours, while preventing the onset of obesity among children aged 9 to 12. The project is set to demonstrate and validate its results in pilot sites in Spain, Greece, and Brazil where alarming rates of increase have sparked urgent action. To ensure children’s rights and data privacy, an ethics board composed of healthcare professionals and children representatives from EU and Brazilian organisations will oversee the project’s implementation.
Objective
Child obesity is the major pediatric public health concern, affecting around 224 million school-age children in the world. Its prevalence has tripled in many European countries since 1980, increasing in an alarming rate. Childhood obesity already affects more than one in three school-aged children in Brazil, Greece and Spain. The main goal of OCARIoT is to promote the improvement of eating and physical disorders and also the prevention of the obesity onset for children (between 9 and 12 years old). For doing so, OCARIoT will develop an IoT-based personalised coaching solution guiding children to adopt healthy eating and physical activity behaviour. The IoT network will allow observing child activity patterns of daily living, health evolution, physiological & behavioural parameters and environmental data. All this information combined with medical patterns will allows OCARIoT to provide a customised obesity coaching plan while enabling children to remain active and engaged in their well-being and healthy habits management. The proposed solution will be able to empower children (and also educational staff and families) in taking control of their health by collecting real-time information about nutrition and physical activity, and interconnecting doctors and children (including parents and tutors) in order to adapt the individual obesity coaching plan. OCARIoT will demonstrate and validate its results on three specific pilot sites in Spain, Greece and Brazil. The OCARIoT consortium will ensure children’s rights and data privacy, security and confidentiality through an Ethics Board composed by healthcare professionals and children representatives from different EU and Brazil organisations.
Fields of science
- social scienceseducational sciencesdidactics
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesinternetinternet of things
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic health
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencemachine learning
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesnutritionobesity
Programme(s)
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
20009 DONOSTIA-SAN SEBASTIAN (GIPUZKOA)
Spain