HappyFoods

HappyFoods is a food diary to track and motivate trying new foods.

Designed for young people with Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder.

The Problem

ARFID

Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder is an eating disorder where sufferers substantially restrict their diet, without motivation to lose weight.

It can be rooted in autistic sensory sensitivity or rigid behaviour patterns. For others, it can stem from a traumatic food experience (e.g. choking or allergies), or anxiety..

It is not a healthy way to be – not just the risk of nutritional deficiencies, but also missing out on the social and emotional benefits of sharing food with others. Sufferers often struggle to access appropriate treatment.

It’s hard to get a balanced diet and fight back from ‘beige’ when you are hyper-sensitive to textures, smells and tastes. Even a change in the brand packaging can trigger anxiety.

How can HappyFoods help?

HappyFoods guides the user through a process called ‘systematic desensitisation’, providing low pressure encouragement to try new foods and keep track of progress. It has some built in activities to reduce anxiety around food. We are working on expanding this, and bringing in prompts for food chaining.

Journal Articles and Resources

The Journey So Far

SaLT for my Squid is a fully independent iOS development studio driven by people who have a personal stake in giving back to the autism community. Led by a software developer with a doctorate in Big Data – the vision is to bring the best of modern technology to make gentle apps to address common problems faced by autistic young people in a dignified and economical way.

The original Squid had delayed speech. It was hard work to support her – the stakes are high, and normal life doesn’t stop.
Apps really helped to take the pressure off me and enrich the environment for her. For a kid frustrated with communication, touch screen devices feel magic, and make therapy exercises much more fun.
Meal times got complicated – and I worked with my eldest kid to find ways to support her eating without it being constant arguments.
My eldests’ art skills plus my love of invention led us to learning app development to realise our ideas on iPhones.
Jan 2019: v1 app concept reel published
April 2019: Invited to Cupertino for Apple Entrepreneur Camp
Met some amazing founders who shared their experiences of building impactful businesses.
Invited to Worldwide Developer Conference 2019
Reserved seats at Tim Cook’s keynote speech…
….and some awesome buddies to share the moment with.
Invited to speak at Women’s Breakfast
Rocking the shirt to raise awareness and support.
I love playing with technology. The beta version of this screen has a built in face recogniser to read the user’s emotion, and a machine learning algorithm to recognise the food that they’ve tried. It feels like magic when it works – and I hope it can deliver a seamless experience to our users.
Happy Foods v3. Design is hard – glad to have new friends in the industry to help guide.
Version 4 has an expanded coaching element. Thanks to my amazing squad of testers for their feedback and suggestions – it makes the project come to life!
Why thank you Tim! I guess it’s now up to us to make an impact on the world.