Overweight and obesity is a global health problem. The percentage of overweight people has been increasing since the 1980s in countries such as the USA, UK, Canada, Spain, Austria, Australia, Italy, France, Korea, etc. (Obesity and the Economics of Prevention, 2010).
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), in Europe more than 50% of the population is overweight and 20% obese. In Spain, obesity already affects 17.4% of the adult population. Considering obesity and overweight together, more than half (54.5%) of adults are overweight. In the last 30 years, adult obesity has increased from 7.4% in 1987 to 17.4% in 2017 (Spanish National Health Survey 2017 published by the Ministry of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare).
Faced with this health problem, researchers at the Universitat Politècnica de València have developed the Wakamola bot. Wakamola is a bot that simulates a conversation in messaging services such as Telegram and can identify individual health behaviours (diet, physical activity, clinical conditions and body mass index) and social factors (environment, social network) related to overweight and obesity. The Wakamola bot is a character that asks users about their diet, physical activity, height, age, weight, etc., through a conversation and funny images. In this way, the use of Wakamola becomes a game as opposed to the usual questionnaires and serious forms.
In addition, Wakamola can be adapted to other contexts of use to monitor the habits of patients with other diseases such as breast cancer or migraine, among others.