1. What is the scope of your research? (this means its goals and limitations-specify what you will be taking on and where the boundaries of your inquiry are)
To further identify how severe emotional eating is to society today and historically. By identifying the problem and educating the masses of its severity I hope to enable people to identify that they have a problem and create and environment that can support the users enabling them to combat the problem that has been affecting them emotionally and physically.
2. What existing projects are similar to what you are considering? What is the competition?
There are a lot of sites out there that deal with eating and diets, however there are not many that strictly deal with this issue. The best that I have seen is shrinkyourself.com, which has a section specifically for this area. The site is really clean and very easy to navigate. I find their interactive tools to be interesting. They have a number of little exercises that you can do to make you think about what you are eating. For example you go through the steps of how you are feeling when you are feeling the urges to emotionally eat. The site asks you to pick from a list of emotions and break them down step by step to overcome the urges. I believe the site is helpful, but also believe it is a program that I would get tired of using after awhile.
3. What are the mediums or tools with which you intend to develop your project?
There are multiple steps that are needed for the project to be successful:
Step One: I need to create an environment where individuals can interact and gather information on the topic – website / communication network – phones.
Step Two: Need to brand and market the idea enable to build the base of users and promote awareness to the problem and provide insight that the issue can be beat.
Step Three: I need to establish a user / support network via marketing and proof of concept that a social network made up of sponsors and peers can be beneficial to helping individuals that are suffering from the disease.
Given the fact that my project is based around the principals that grouping individuals with similar problems and banning them together through communication and information can enable them to battle and conquer their problems.
4. How does your thesis extend or enhance these tools or the inquiry on this subject?
Technology is always advancing, however I find some if to be unnecessary. I have also found technology to lose personal connections. I think using existing technology in order to have people come together with similar issues can enable users to learn and benefit from others experiences and benefit from the technological and personal connections.
5. How does your thesis advance knowledge in general and specifically surrounding your research topic?
I want to advance knowledge in the subject of emotional eating and make people aware of how much of an issue it is. My project will address that and give a possible solution of how to control with support.
6. How do you see the relationship of the written thesis document and the actual project?
The research that I conduct has to be very exact on the subject. If I don’t have strong research than my project could potentially fail. The written thesis will go hand in hand with the actual project. The written research and analysis will be the core for the actual project. Through the written research that is conducted I will be able to identify the key concepts that will be utilized on the actual project site and program.
7. Does one support the other or are the different stages of the same thing?
The written part will support the actual project. Since I am picking a topic that requires a great deal of knowledge on the subject of emotional eating I need to have all of the correct information in order to create something that can be a useful experience for the user.
8. What research method (scientific, experimental, etc.) are you employing?
I am trying to stay organized by breaking the project down into several steps. First I am starting with research and next I need to start some small dirty prototypes and then continually refine each other. I really would like to get my full concept down so I won’t be delayed when the semester starts. I will have to make myself a calendar of what needs to be done and stick to it in order to stay on schedule. What I really need to start working on is finding my user group and building some experiments based on their feedback. I am in the process of getting multiple user surveys completed and interviewing individuals that are comfortable speaking about their concerns / problems.
9. What problems or limitations do you foresee in the process and development?
I see a few problems that I think I will face. First one being that I need to find a group of users that suffer from emotional eating who may or may not be overweight because of it. I will need to refer to them for several user testing and have them feel comfortable sharing their problems with me during the process. Also, the technology end of how this social network is going to work. I know how to build interactive sites, but I think I will need to expand my knowledgebase on the more sophisticated techniques of online interaction and communication.
10. What form (pre-existing, new, hybrid, etc.) does the thesis project take as a final product?
This final project will be an interactive social network where people can go to for information, support and create a network to utilize while not in front of the site itself. I am still at an early stage of this project so I’m sure that this answer may change a few times.
11. How does the thesis respond to contemporary culture? What niche does it define?
I think that my thesis is touching on a subject that people have been dealing with for a very long time. Obesity is a huge problem in the United States and unfortunately it is not getting any better. I fear for our youth that continues to follow in the same footsteps. Emotional eating is not the only thing that causes obesity, but it does play a role in today’s society.
12. What are the potential applications (commercial, academic, industrial, scientific, artistic, other)?
Commercial because this is something that can be marketed and used in real life.
Academic because this involves educating on a serious issue that people are suffering from.
13. What or who is the market, audience or public?
My audiences are people who suffer from emotional eating. This could touch a wide variety of people including teenagers, elderly, men and women. From the research that I have conducted to date the majority of my research will target women, as I believe they are the most susceptible to my topic. I would be thrilled if my project could benefit all emotional eaters.
14. How do you intend the thesis project to engage this audience? What will the audience take away (experience or learn) from this experience?
In today’s society obesity is an ever-increasing problem that needs to be addressed, fought and conquered. To fight obesity one must know what the issue is, what causes it, and how one can react to defeat it. There are many causes why people are obese, one of which that I will be addressing is emotional eating. There are a number of people that are obese or suffer from over eating because they resort to food instead of dealing with their emotions head on. I believe that by using existing technologies to create an environment to help these individuals communicate with others who suffer from the same issue will be very beneficial. I want my audience to learn what emotional is and come to terms on how to deal with it. My goal is to create this by using already existing technology so that it can be accessible to anyone who needs it, while also providing the human interaction via the support network. Through research I have discovered that people who tend to emotionally eat sometimes don’t even realize they do it and don’t understand the consequences until its too late. The first step is to educate the user so that they can learn how to control it and then provide them with the network to battle the problem itself.
15. What are the means of distributing or communicating the project to this audience? (this essentially means-where are you or could you see distributing this project beyond your thesis here at MFADT).
This would have to be created on the web. My ideas now are to have this act as a social network that can be accessible to anyone who needs it. This means that a pretty sophisticated site would have to be made in order for this to work. This is something that I am very passionate about and would like to see if people who need it could use it.
Ultimately word of mouth, advertising and proof of concept will enable me to distribute the project to a greater audience and help to build the audience to a wide spread network where others can join and participate anonymously.
16. Who are your advisors and mentors and have you contacted them? (this is one of the rare times in your life that you can pick up the phone to an accomplished person and tell them that you are an MFADT student doing thesis research – get yourself in communication with people with whom you need to be in dialogue. Record, Photograph and Video tape your interactions. Recording the process of your thesis development is key.)
I am in the process of getting in touch with some nutritionists just to get a perspective from people who work with others related to food issues. I also want to get in touch with Geneen Roth who has written several books related to this topic. She is actually holding an emotional eating workshop in San Francisco in the end of September and I would LOVE to be able to attend her seminar. I am waiting to arrange the potential trip until the beginning of the semester.
Virginia