Tackling obesity by empowering parents, children and clinicians with interactive visualisations

The focus of this PhD is to examine the current usage of growth charts and how creating novel interactive visualisations to improve upon current growth charts will help to support parents, children and clinicialns to tackle obesity. At present, clinicians are encouraged to use growth charts of weight ranges against age for boys and girls to determine a young person's weight status and whether they have a clinical diagnosis of obesity. However, these are often conceptually complex and there is evidence to suggest that interactive visualisations could be used to present more meaningful information tailored to each patient. A combination of literature reviews, qualitiative methods and participatory design processes will be used to address four research questions in this PhD - these are:
1) What is the difference in information delivery for children and parents in the context of growth charts and how can interactive visualisations support this?
2) Will parent and children be able to understand and trust interactive visualisations of growth charts?
3) How are both parents and children's lifestyle choices informed and influenced by interactive visualisations for growth charts?
4) What is the role of the clinician when parents and children are involved in the use of interactive growth charts?
These studies will lay the groundwork for future studies concerning personal informatics and developing technology for behaviour change.