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A design study that examines eating habits of parents during meal preparation

Unconscious eating takes place while preparing the food and while clearing the table

Creating a dialogue between mindful eating and automatic eating

Focus group - parents of children aged 2-12, whose only common denominator is the routine around preparing meals for children

Eating and our relationship with food has always fascinated me - I have long since realized that it has nothing to do with hunger or basic needs. As with many others, I had questions about what I eat and when, and what drives my eating habits.
I wanted  to explore this entangled physiological and psychological process that almost always involves feelings of guilt and failure. Investigating the subject through design processes posed a difficult challenge, and I thus used a technique called speculative design or critical design that offers an alternative to how things are in the present, and operates within the gap between familiar reality and vision.
In addition, I used a concept called co-design, which involves active participation of the participants, and during which both parents and children revealed  their specific eating habits. This allowed me to characterize specific undesirable habits and to develop tools whose function is to consciously disrupt these habits, giving parents the ability to exaime more consciously.

Specially designed tools may disrupt automatic eating - various aspects

Quantitative aspect - dose control

Visual aspect - changing the context with the help of serving style

Ceremonial aspect - delaying the act of eating

Parents' attitudes toward their eating habits

A survey of 35 participants. February 2020

Active user research aimed at mapping common habits

Lack of awareness about the degree of control over eating habits

The general message conveyed by the participants was: "We're all in the same boat, we all snack while preparing meals for the children, no matter what we eat even if it's considered healthy, it bothers us that we have no control over it.

Mediation between the act of automatic eating and attentive eating

A formal and material search based on representative cases that emerged from the

study

Placing a mirror that reflects the act of eating

Habit analysis and customized  tool development

A set of tools that will delay and disrupt the automatic eating operation

A kit sent to each of the study participants

Two configurations for each dish - edible and inedible

The edible tools have been popular among the parents

A tool to make a mini dish from the pot

A tool to snack vegetables while slicing

Cracker to wipping off leftovers from the spoon / knife

Finally, I would like to share with you the insights that emerged from the "Mindfulbis" project.
This is a research project that deals with a cognitive issue that examines, among other aspects, how design can stimulate awareness. This was not a scientific study, and the focus was on the tool design and dialogue with the parents that emerged during the project.
The purpose of the design research was to create tools that will be a trigger that floods habits and changes consciousness.
The study clearly showed that many people are unaware of the degree of control over their eating habits. The parents willingly cooperated because the process was not personal and the arena in which it took place was indirect. Moreover, the fact that some dishes were edible and the project did not require refraining from eating, but only awareness, contributed to a positive discourse around the subject.
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