Question for programmers...or about an app?

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 abr1966 16 Jul 2019

I'm starting some voluntary work which is with overweight kids and my part of it is mostly to do with maintaining motivation and understanding why young people often drop out.....

Id like to know if its possible to get an app or something which would take a photo of a young person and then what they could look like if they lost the weight etc....

Quite a lot of kids on the scheme are teenage girls with low self esteem and little resilience but are all very image aware etc...

Any guidance/ advice greatly appreciated....I'm not very techy!

Thanks

4
 Luke90 16 Jul 2019
In reply to abr1966:

> Quite a lot of kids on the scheme are teenage girls with low self esteem and little resilience but are all very image aware etc...

I hope you know what you're doing! I'm sure you've put more thought into this than is coming across in the post but what you've written here comes across as rather simplistic, which is a bit alarming in the context of talking to vulnerable teenage girls about a sensitive subject. Are you utterly confident you're going to do more good than harm?

OP abr1966 16 Jul 2019
In reply to Luke90:

Thanks....I do know what i'm doing....I appreciate my post is a bit simple....in professional life I'm competent and work with young people.

What I'm not competent in is tech related stuff...

 BnB 17 Jul 2019
In reply to abr1966:

Tackling obesity is a significant priority for the nation but this is a very dangerous idea. You'd almost certainly be feeding the triggers of anorexia. Teenagers (and those of all ages) are already fed a constant stream of perfect bodies to covet. Encouraging anyone to replicate those "ideals" runs counter to all current mental health advice.

If anyone doubts what I'm saying, then feel free to ask me about the three years of hell brought about by my daughter's anorexia, from which she is recovered, but not without lasting scars, in the form of mental health and dietary complications.

Don't do it. Take some professional advice instead.

 wintertree 17 Jul 2019

I’m sorry, but this also worries me. You run the risk of showing someone a body image that they can never achieve.

I understand the drive to help motivate people, and if you had posted this last question week I would’ve suggested using an app to gather and visualise data on activity as that can be a powerful motivating tool. However a few days ago there was a piece on the radio about “fitness tracker” apps and how for some people they were fuelling very unhealthy practices around exercise and food.

That’s news piece just drove home for me the scale of the problem and the unbounded scope for unintended consequences of good intentions.

I don’t like to answer UKC posts with advice to do something very different, but in this case I really think that the advice from everyone is worth listening to. My suggestion would be to focus on core techniques for self-respect and self-belief with no mention of body image. With those tools, weight is a less dangerous issue to approach, and one that’s closer to solving itself.  Give them the tools and avoid tempting, “quick” steps.

 Andy Hardy 17 Jul 2019
In reply to abr1966:

Apart from the body image issues mentioned above, how would you photoshop a picture of yourself 10kg lighter? where would those 10kg be lost from? fat or muscle? assuming it's fat, which area? evenly? this seems unlikely (based on a sample size of 1). I think as well as being a bad idea generally, the results obtained by "auto photo-shopping" would be so inaccurate as to be pointless

 Blue Straggler 17 Jul 2019
In reply to abr1966:

Just show them the Amy Schumer film “I Feel Pretty”. It’s not very funny and not even good, but there IS a positive message in there that is surely better than showing obese kids some computer generated image of why you think they “should” look like. 

 mastamysta 17 Jul 2019
In reply to abr1966:

I study computer science and EEE at uni and the short answer is yes, I would say this is pretty doable.

I would however agree with the other comments here arguing that this goes in direct contradiction to most of the safeguarding training I've had for my outreach work with kids.

My suggestion would be to establish role model figures for these kids. Professional climbers, adventure climbers, even individuals who you know who are just quite good at climbing. You want the motivation to be to improve at the sport and as a person rather than to just be lose weight any way possible.

 DancingOnRock 17 Jul 2019
In reply to abr1966:

Man Editor

 rogersavery 17 Jul 2019
In reply to abr1966:

Find a 50 story building with no lift

tell them every time they walk from the ground floor to the 50th floor they will see a picture of themselves after loosing some weight

put a large mirror on the 50th floor

 climbingpixie 17 Jul 2019
In reply to abr1966:

Another vote for NOT doing something like this. As someone who was once an insecure teenage girl with body image issues and low self esteem I was already well aware of how much better I would look (and thus how much better my life would be) if I was thinner. Being constantly bombarded with photoshopped images of women with what I considered 'perfect bodies' in the media and the knowledge of how dismally mine compared to theirs was pretty depressing.

For me, what really changed my attitude and motivation was finding a sport (ju jitsu, at that time) that I enjoyed and didn't feel self-conscious doing. It totally changed the relationship I have with my body because I started to see it as this amazing thing that I could train and use, rather than a series of disparate parts that were 'good' or 'bad' on the basis of how attractive they made me to men. It gave me intrinsic motivation for wanting to get fitter or stronger but also helped me make peace with the parts of it that didn't meet the conventional beauty criteria. That was far more helpful for both my physical and mental health than trying to lose weight so I could be hotter.

OP abr1966 17 Jul 2019
In reply to climbingpixie:

Thanks for all of the comments.....this is a well established programme commissioned by a CCG and the third sector. There are dietetics, personal trainers and health advisors as part of the program, which is of course voluntary should young people wish to engage and there are appropriate governance and safeguards established within the operational policy.

For assurance, my day job is as a consultant clinical psychologist working in child and adolescent mental health and I have significant experience of working with young people experiencing eating disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa.

One of the issues identified by some young people is about not knowing how they could look or feel if they were to make the step forward in to engagement with the program and a high motivational factor identified by them is their appearance and how this could be changed with better health and weight loss. If the images were possible to create their use would be managed with appropriate sensitivity and because this was something the particular young person had identified as a possible motivating factor. It really is not about showing images and being inconsiderate.... and is of course 1 of many options which may help.....and would only be utilised if the person themselves had identified this aspect as helpful to them.

1
Pan Ron 17 Jul 2019
In reply to abr1966:

Off-topic, but this has been a fascinating thread; apparent experts wading in with absolute certainty over the rights and wrongs of an approach to an issue....followed by someone apparently equally qualified, with similar certainty and an opposing view.  I find it a bit sad that potentially good ideas can be struck down by the crowd so easily.

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OP abr1966 17 Jul 2019
In reply to Pan Ron:

Thanks for your comments....

On reflection my initial post could have been written better but it was late and I was tired.....

I don't mind the scrutiny and queries....I'm interpreting it as folk being concerned for the wellbeing of young people, but....at the same time there is a major public health issue relating to overweight kids and the impact of this on their development, confidence, self esteem and so on.

I'm lending a hand to the scheme at the weekends for some kids who people have a lot of concerns about but are struggling to engage....I'm just trying to find ways to help out as best as I can.

Its UKC....best and worst of everything at the same time!

 john arran 17 Jul 2019
In reply to abr1966:

Given that you're a (self-confessed) part-timer with what sounds like a cool idea, I would suggest it would be wise to first run the idea past the people who are running the programme, to find out how it is likely to be received, before delving too far into the technical feasibility (which I presume to be certainly achievable but potentially not easy at minimal cost). They may well have a wealth of experience that will help inform whether your cool idea is worth further investigation, or whether it's likely to bring with it some unintended drawbacks.

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 wintertree 17 Jul 2019
In reply to Pan Ron:

> Off-topic, but this has been a fascinating thread; apparent experts wading in with absolute certainty over the rights and wrongs of an approach to an issue...

I don’t see a single respondent on this thread claiming to be an expert with regards potential dangers (what you call “wrongs”).  I see people sharing what is so clearly either their personal experiences of their opinions that it doesn’t need labelling as such.

I absolutely support the OPs motivations to find ways to engage people.  Technology is a powerful platform for that.  I have been involved in discussions on scoping out an app to record introspective stats and activity levels for monitoring and predicting depressive episodes.  As part of that I have gained a phobia of unintended consequences.  Then along comes a radio piece obout fitness trackers encouraging eating and exercise disorders - confirmation bias for my phobias perhaps...  The OPs query resonated with a lot of that.

Even managed to minimise the chance of harm, I worry that a computer slimmed version of a person may not represent an achievable goal given the environmental and genetic variability of weight loss.  I’m not convinced showing someone an unachievable “goal” is going to be beneficial in the long run.

An alternative app approach is to ask a set of questions about how someone feels about themselves before and after engaging in the activity.  Does this show them some evidence that the activity has had an effect?  It’s less gee whiz and it’s no use getting an individual to engage first time around.  

>   I find it a bit sad that potentially good ideas can be struck down by the crowd so easily.

The crowd is striking nothing down.  The OP has a bunch of feedback they can dig in to and apply to their idea; this allows them to test and strengthen their idea.  

Normally you have to pay people one way or another to help develop an idea.  Of course, you get what you pay for...

Edit:  I imagine plastic surgeons have exactly this software and use it as part of their marketing and sales strategy.  Of course they can choose where to suck fat from to work to the software’s output...   

Post edited at 21:44
OP abr1966 17 Jul 2019
In reply to john arran:

I have done all of that.....I was invited to take part.

 mike123 18 Jul 2019
In reply to all:

> For assurance, my day job is as a consultant clinical psychologist working in child and adolescent mental health and I have significant experience of working with young people experiencing eating disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa.

As others did, I read the original post and thought , hmmm I hope they know what they are doing , then I read the above and thought , yep , they probably do. 

 freeflyer 18 Jul 2019
In reply to abr1966:

That sounds like a great technical project, but you are unlikely to get a result starting from scratch unless you have a lot of money. I had a customer who wanted to identify silver hallmarks by taking a photo in the app, and had loads of fun before they ran out of budget.

Look for apps which do body metamorphosis for fun, and use those as discussion starters. I searched for "ios app body shape" and got a whole slew of results.

FWIW I would echo the doubts expressed up-thread, but assume you know what you're doing.

HTH


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