The Issues

As I said in my concept page the main aim of my project is to try and get people of the sofa and engaging with some sort of exercise. So the main area I’m looking at is health and fitness.

Obesity in Scotland: The stats, the causes and effects.

In Scotland, in 2003 (www.isdscotland.org/isd/5108.html) 22% of men and 24% of women are clinically obese. Not only that, one in every five children between the ages of two and fifteen are obese.

Obesity can have more effects than just the extra weight and mobility problems. It can cause high blood pressure, diabetes, osteoarthritis and many other health problems.

Many things can cause obesity, but the vast majority of cases are due to a person consuming more calories than they use up. In other words, over eating and under exercising. (www.obesityinamerica.org/causes.html)

Because I’m dealing with turning the power off to your TV there are some inherent issues that come with that such as energy conservation, and time manangement.

Energy Conservation

“Research carried out in 2001 suggested that 6%-10% of household energy is wasted through gadgets left on standby.”
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2006/jul/03/lifeandhealth.environment)

Think about that for a second. Six to ten percent of all the energy that your whole house uses is wasted. Think of all the money you’d save, especially in the current climate with energy prices rising steeply.And that’s when they are on stand-by and not using them. What if you could watch less TV that would be more money in your pocket?  The guardian article also says that set-top boxes alone cost £30 a year just to run.

Time management

The issue of time management is more of a social and productivity issue. I conducted a short ethnographical study, which looked into TV watching habits in my household. I also took information I gained from a focus group of my peers, and put them together to gauge the TV watching habits of my target market. What I found was interesting. The people I asked watched between one hour and five hours of TV a day.

Other products on the market:

There are not many similar products on the market at the moment. I found a lot of exercise guides that you could do while watching TV, but mostly they just said ‘do something, anything’. Of the other products that are on the market at the moment, that are in a similar vane, they mostly consist of modified exercise machinery, or games consoles/games that use special peripherals.  Such as the Nintendo Wii or dance mats.

Home.

About/Concept.

Research.

Development.

Campaign

Project Process.

Reflection.

Thanks.