International Students and Healthy Food Consumption
Design Thinking and Generative Research Project - 2019
The project presented here was part of an academic discipline. Here, you will find the results of joint efforts and several iterations which took place during the period of one semester.
Framing of the Problem
Moving to a new country with a different culture can have negative impact in students eating habits.
Goal
To help international students to eat healthier
After extensive desk research and short interviews, we identified that unhealthy eating is a common concern among international students. Below, you will find the process of development of a generative research session about the topic.
Design Thinking and Participatory Design Strategy
Sensitizing Period
The diary was a tool to sensitize participants of the workshop to think about which kind of food they are consuming regularly, digging into what affects their daily eating habits.
The participants received diaries to be filled during the period of seven days, in which they had to:
1. Indicate whether the food consumed in each meal was fresh or processed;
2. In the end of the day, they would answer the question: How did you feel about your eating today?
Before beginning the workshop we had a short discussion about their eating habits, based on the diaries.
Workshop
The workshop consisted in three activities, through which the participants were invited to express their perceptions and collaborate with the ideation of solutions.
Warm Up
Goal:
Participants introduce themselves to the group and get a brief understanding about the topic of the workshop.
Procedure:
Every participant selects 3 items(images of food) from the table. Next, they present their choices to the group and are questioned why they chose those items.
Activity 1 - What? Now What? So What?
Goal
Make participants explain and reflect about their previous and current eating habits, and express how they feel about it.
Procedure
Participants will receive an A4 paper divided in the middle. In one side, they will write what they used to eat in their home countries that they are not currently eating; on the other they do the opposite, writing what they are eating in Estonia, that they didn’t use to eat before. Next, they will have to answer three questions about what they eat:
1. What changed in their eating habits?
2. Now What? How they see this change? Do they think it is better now or before?
3. So What? What they think about it? Should they change something in their current eating habits?
Activity 2 - Dream about the future
Goal
This activity is referring participants to the future. How they dream about the ideal way to provide their food.
Procedure
The question is: What will be the best way for you to get your food?
While we asking the question we provided pictures about possible ways and tools for accessing the food for participants and ask them to use them got their food. Moreover, we ask them to write it down or draw their own ideal way to get to the food.
Findings
1. Participants are mostly aware of the importance of a balanced diet, and know which aliments are healthy
2. Main issue regard access to health food is shortage of time and budget;
3. Lack of ready-made healthy options (snacks, meals) lead them to eat unhealthy food.
The possible solutions should help the consumer with the issues of time, budget, balanced diet and access to healthy food.
About the process
The workshop was designed based on design thinking and participatory design theories. More than the findings about the researched topic, it aimed at creating adequate and useful activities to a participatory design project.
This research was part of the discipline Design Thinking and Generative Research at Tallinn University.
Team: Ali Haririan, Debora Bah, Farshad Farahnakian, Gabriela Beltão,Iuliia Paramonova and Sebastian Brotzler
Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash
Workshop photos by the authors;
