A New Automated Chatbot for Weight Loss Maintenance

Samuel Holmes, Anne Moorhead, RR Bond, Huiru Zheng, Vivien Coates, Michael McTear

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

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Abstract

Obesity and Overweight are significant risk factors for many chronic conditions, such as type 2 diabetes. Weight loss is difficult and maintaining weight loss is a greater challenge. Effective communication is hindered by conflicting information and the sensitivity of the subject of obesity. Recent technological solutions for weight loss maintenance are limited. A chatbot would be appropriate for supporting weight loss as it does not require a human operator, is available 24 hours a day, and supports natural communication while maintaining anonymity. Such a system may also be integrated with popular social media platforms such as Facebook Messenger. This paper describes the design and development of the WeightMentor chatbot, a self-help motivational tool for weight loss maintenance. Chatbots may have the potential to contribute to obesity prevention and management.
Original languageEnglish
Pages1-5
Number of pages5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished (in print/issue) - 10 May 2018
EventBritish HCI Conference 2018 - Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Duration: 2 Jul 20186 Jul 2018

Conference

ConferenceBritish HCI Conference 2018
Abbreviated titleBHCI2018
Country/TerritoryNorthern Ireland
CityBelfast
Period2/07/186/07/18

Keywords

  • chatbot
  • obesity
  • self managament
  • health
  • weight
  • AI

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