Interactions - March/April 2010

the curves during their meal, periodically inputting their perceived level of fullness so that the computer can adjust the eating rate. Overtime patients learn how to eat and perceive satiety. Studies have reported successful treatment of patients with anorexia nervosa and up to two years of remission after treatment with the Mandometer [ 7]. While this tool helps patients become accustomed to sitting down to a complete meal, it offers no information on what constitutes a healthy meal. It also does not help patients become comfortable at making decisions about appropriate food portions, a skill that is essential to everyday living. Similar to VEs, the technology for the Mandometer is extremely new and relies on sophisticated hardware and software that is currently unavailable to the majority of patients with EDs. The positive effects on the treatment of EDs with the Mandometer, however, must be evaluated cautiously since these authors are the original developers of the program. To date, no independent studies of the effectiveness of the Mandometer for treating ED patients have been completed.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Desmond Ballance is a project manager with Lifelearn Inc. in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, where she designs and develops interactive online learning initiatives for the
veterinary and human medicine communi-
ties. With an M.Sc. in biomedical communi-
cations from the University of Toronto and
an M.Sc. from the Department of Animal
Science at the University of Manitoba, she
looks forward to blending her interests in
animals, science, education and art into a
fulfilling, if not eclectic, career. Ballance is
currently working with a Toronto-based
research team on MyMeal, to advance its
development and potential as a clinical tool
for patients with eating disorders.

totype allows users to create personalized daily meal plans by selecting food images and dragging them onto the appropriate tableware (see Figure

3). The user can also access feedback about the number of servings from each food group he or she has included in his or her daily meal plan, compare it with the recommended range of servings for a single day, and make adjustments to personalized menus as necessary. When the user’s daily meal plan is complete, he or she can save it to a specific calendar date or dates, and revisit these saved meals for future referencing or editing as desired. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations of the MyMeal program still need to be completed, but initial informal assessments of the program by health care professionals caring for ED patients felt the concept had strong potential and supported continued investigation.

In summary, the major prob-
lems with the existing visuals
for educating ED patients about
meal planning are limitations
in providing an adequate rep-
resentation of food portion
size within the context of a
complete meal, in an accessible
and cost-effective manner that
enables ED patients to practice
meal planning. Our preliminary
investigation into the applica-
tion of an interactive meal
visualization tool for assist-
ing adolescents with EDs to
improve their understanding of
food portion sizes and balanced
meals has been encouraging.
Ultimately, interactive tools
such as MyMeal may offer ado-
lescents like Chelsea a highly
interactive, non-threatening
way of reducing anxiety asso-
ciated with eating and meal
planning.

Jodie Jenkinson is a full-
time faculty member in bio-
medical communications at
the University of Toronto,
where she teaches com-
munity-centered design
research, information visualization, and
Web-based health and science design. Her
research interests include information visu-
alization and perceptual design theory, and
the evaluation of interactive health and sci-
ence education tools. Jenkinson has exten-
sive experience in the development and
evaluation of educational tools for both the
professional and lay audience. She is the
author and instructional designer of The
Prostate Centre, a Web-based guide for
newly-diagnosed oncology patients and
co-author of BreastMatters, a breast cancer
awareness program for breast screening
patients who are at high risk of developing
breast cancer.

A New Innovative Tool—MyMeal In response to the absence of an effective meal-visualization tool, MyMeal was designed as a Web-based, user-tailored, interactive meal-visualization tool, intended to offer teens the opportunity to become comfortable with portion size, practice creating balanced meals, and better understand what a normal meal should look like on a plate. The pro-