Pirate Bri’s Grocery Adventure: Teaching Food Literacy through Shopping

Abstract

Food Literacy (FL) is associated with the improvement of autonomy and confidence around food, healthier dietary intake, and chronic disease prevention. However, to date, behaviour change research at CHI has focused on motivating healthy eating mainly through weight loss and calorie control, which can lead to poor nutritional choices as consumers optimize caloric intake over a balanced diet. To address this gap, we designed a mobile game called Pirate Bri’s Grocery Adventure, that seeks to improve FL through a situated learning approach to grocery shopping. Our game leverages Self Determination Theory (SDT) to build a player’s competence, autonomy, and relatedness as shoppers are encouraged to develop an understanding of the nutritional benefits of foods and are rewarded for balancing sugar, sodium, fats and fibre in their purchases.