How to stay allergy free!

Eating healthier with food allergies

Yin Yin Wu

Eating healthy on campus is hard enough…

The big question: How can a busy college student with severe food allergies eat healthier on campus with the limited options?

What he can’t eat: chocolate, milk, peanuts, all fruits, all vegetables, ice cream, coconut, and the list goes on…

Meet David: college age, limited access to eateries on campus, iphone user, busy schedule, avid technology user, wants to eat healthier

Our Challenge: Make it easy for David to eat healthy

Problem 1: David loves foodDavid loves good food. The problem is that he gets sick is he eats most of

what he loves. To keep David on track, we need to find good local digs that have food he can eat.

Solution: Aardvark is a gmail-chat based q&a site. David can ask a question that’s answered by a local person. The information is highly personalized and relevant.

Good sites for collective general information, but doesn’t provide David with information that’s specifically relevant to him

Problem 2: David lacks accountability

Why it works: Blippy tweets everything you buy to your social graph. For David, Blippy is forced accountability. Everthing he buys will be passively tweeted so that his friends can hold him accountable for making healthy food choices.

Problem 3: David is lazyDavid wants to do minimal work to become

healthy. He knows his motivation will drop if being healthy takes a lot of effort.

iEatOut allows David to pick restaurants based on his allergies. He selects the foods he’s allergic to, and iEatOut automatically displays the local restaurant options he has.

Problem 4: David lacks knowledge

iPhone Apps that help David manage his allergies

• Allergy Companion NoPeanut

• WebArtisan Food Additives• Pepper Stuff Gluten-Free

Restaurant Cards• Jive Media LLC Pocket First

Aid• Polka Close Call• e-Agent Asthma- Charte

David doesn’t know the ingredient list of all the foods that he eats. He needs an easy way to look up the common ingredients so that he can avoid his allergies.

Solution: iPhone applications. David always has his iPhone on him. By downloading a few applications, he can easily check the ingredients list.

Problem 5: David is forgetfulDavid has people to see, classes to attend, and work to do. He often eats on the run

and forgets to choose the healthier option. Eating healthy is often something he overlooks…

Thunderbird allows David to schedule emails to be send in the future. David can setup Thunderbird to send himself weekly checkups on his progress. Google Calendar can send David daily reminder emails about his commitment to eat better.

With constant reminders, eating healthy switches from something on the side to a lifestyle change that’s part of David’s daily routine

David’s ready for change

Now

Where he wants to be

By making it super simple to eat healthy and providing triggers to help him stay on track, we help David achieve his health goals

LazyBusy

ForgetfulAccountability

Food lover