Is it too late to transform the role of augmented reality in changing it’s ways for our future generations? (eNCA 2014)
Post two by Marie Good
The analysis’ below are of two scholarly articles that take a further scientific and researched based leap into the world of healthy living. I have decided to focus on two areas; healthy living blogs and how healthy they really are for their audiences and the role augmented reality could have in changing our education system to incorporate physical activity as a compulsory standard aspect of education curriculums.
‘A content analysis of Healthy living blogs: evidence on content thematically consistent with dysfunctional eating attitudes and behaviours’, is a journal article published by the International Journal of Eating Disorders in 2014 and written by Leah Boepple and Joel Kevin Thompson (Boeple & Thompson 2014). Boeple at the Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, holds a B.A and Thompson a PhD of the department also. This article is a content analysis and evaluation of various healthy living blogs. A sample of 21 blogs that had either won an award or had a large number of followers, was evaluated. It was discovered that more than half had shown signs of advertising or publishing content pro problematic eating or body image views. Boeple has written about issues such as this before, particularly focusing on body image, eating disorders and educational programs to combat these issues more effectively. Thompson has a very similar background also. I found this article very interesting as it supports the views I have had on this topic for a long time. Coming from a background where healthy living blogs have been an area of interest for myself and people I know closely, I have often realised the blogs are not always consistent with healthy lifestyle thinking.
Kuei-Fang Hsiao and Nian-Shing Chen (Hsiao & Chen 2011) from the Department of Information Management, Taiwan wrote a journal report in 2011 titled, ‘The development of the AR-Fitness System in Education.’ Hsiao has written about augmented reality several times previously, as well as wireless technologies and Chen has focused particularly on ubiquitous learning, technology and education. This article views the recent emergence of technology and healthcare to create interactions with the virtual and real world and expands it into information used to create AR technology for students which they call ‘edutainment technologies,’ based on the five physical indicators of BMI (body mass index), cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance and flexibility. Hsiao and Chen designed a prototyped AR technology that aims to have the children moving and interacting with a screen in order to answer questions and proceed through their learning curriculum. Hsiao and Chen propose this technology might be more beneficial to subjects such as PE and sports as the children realise movement is incorporated into the curriculum, which I agree with. The struggle still seems to be convincing children of this revolutionary change in education that they currently understand as a sedentary activity so they can view it as a physical one instead.
Reference list
Boepple, L. & Thompson, J., K. 2014, ‘A content analysis of healthy living blogs: evidence on content thematically consistent with dysfunctional eating attitudes and behaviors’, International Journal of Eating Disorders, pp 362-367.
Hsiao, K. & Chen, N. 2011, ‘The development of the AR-fitness system in education’, Edutainment Technologies. Educational gmes and virtual reality/augumented reality applications, pp. 2–11
eNCA. 2014, unknown, E News Chanel Africa, date viewed 15 August 2016, < https://www.enca.com/10-facts-about-obesity >.
Emergent Practices 
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