This post first appeared on the Global Health Ideas blog. It has been cross-posted with their permission.
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This is a guest post by Preethi Sundararaman, summer associate working with the FEC Healthcare for All team at Ashoka.
It is a known fact that childhood obesity is on the rise, affecting one third of American children today. Alarmingly, researchers are predicting that for the first time in U.S. history, children may have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.
On July 13th, I attended the “Innovation, Information and Technology for Better Health Outcomes” conversation event held at World Bank. Todd Park, the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and co-founder of Athenahealth Inc., was one of three panelists at the event.
A key theme Park brought up was the impact technology and social media could have on healthcare for younger generations. “What if FarmVille were HealthVille?” Park asked. FarmVille, a real-time farm simulation game, has acquired 75 million Facebook users just within a year of being available. If games with the potential to reach this many were designed around health data, generations to come could grow up being more health conscious.
