Beatrix's Brief:

Eating Habits in Cambridge: a map room created to explore the stories of how people eat. Anyone who comes in will be mapping what they like to eat, why, what they wish they could eat, and whether or not they think what they eat is good for them. 

In this Map Room, parents and their children will be asked three guiding questions: where do you eat, where would you want to eat, and where do you think it is healthy to eat? By thinking about these questions, they will be able to tell us what they define as “healthy”, what restaurants they like, and what they most commonly eat. Using existing MapRoom technology, we will provide the mapmakers with projected images of the city of Cambridge with all of its restaurants, parks, gyms, and hospitals that treat obesity. By having people map out what they eat and focusing on whether or not it’s good for them, and asking questions like “am I really making the right choices?” they can start to become more educated about food and what they eat.

Mapping Eating Habits in Cambridge can help people like the mayor identify “food deserts” in Cambridge, areas that lack healthy food choices so that people who live there can’t make good meal decisions. For example, if someone circled a Whole Foods and said “I want to go here, but I can’t because it’s too far away”, city officials could encourage healthy restaurants and grocery stores to build there. This project can also change the way people view how they eat by asking them to think about their eating choices and why they eat healthily or unhealthily. In the U.S., the obesity rate is a stunning 74.1%, compared to countries like Italy (42%), New Zeland (30.8%) or Vietnam (0.5%). A large part of the reason why Americans are obese is that they don’t know what their food is doing to them. Brands like Coca-Cola advertise health products that are in fact bad for you, but because of the way they are marketed people keep having more and more. Stakeholders who will be brought to our MapRoom will include doctors and educators who can talk about obesity and eating decisions, and parents and children so the parents can learn about what they should be feeding their children and the children can tell the parents what they’re eating when they are away (school lunches, outings with friends, etc). This MapRoom could be held in a health restaurant, farmer’s market or gym to expose the mapmakers to healthier eating options and lifestyle choices.

Noah's Brief:

Mapping Eating Habits in Cambridge is meant to give parents and children insightful information about where the healthiest places to eat are and where children eat. The map uses stickers to mark restraints and identify them as either healthy, okay, or unhealthy.

My project addresses the obesity epidemic. During my research, I learned that the states that had the highest rates of obesity were also the states that had the lowest average income and the least active people. My project helps parents and children by educating them on the causes of obesity  as well as what a person can do to prevent obesity. It will push people to eat healthily and exercise, which will lower obesity. My map makes the viewer question where the most healthy places to eat are. My project is for Americans who aren't knowledgeable about the causes and effects of obesity. Stakeholders such as parents and children to our map room so that we get different perspectives from relevant sources. We will put our map in the CambridgeSide mall so that people that walked through can see it.

Stickers are used on a map to mark healthy and unhealthy restaurants. We will only to complete the map we need to project a map of the restaurants in Cambridge and smiley face stickers and frowny face stickers. We will ask about where people eat vs. where people enjoy eating vs. what a healthy eating choice is. This forces them to think about the health benefits and drawbacks of different places.