Nutrition Science and Behavioral Theories Integrated in a Serious Game for Adolescents

Purpose . Serious games have demonstrated positive effects on adolescent eating and physical activity. The purpose of this paper is to describe how constructs from social cognitive theory (SCT) and self-determination theory (SDT) were operationalized in the development of the serious game CREATURE 101 (C-101) to engage players in acquiring motivation , knowledge, skills, and personal agency. Approach . C-101 was developed from an evaluated nutrition and science curriculum for middle school youth, Choice, Control & Change (C3) . Its behavior change goals are three pairs of “increase/decrease†behaviors: increase water / decease sweetened beverages, increase fruit and vegetables / decrease processed snacks (chips, candy etc), and increase physical activity (light, medium, intense) / decrease recreational screen time (watching TV, playing video games for fun) through a “virtual companion care†motif where the players bring their adopted creatures back to health. Several procedures or strategies were used to develop the story line and activities in C-101 to address autonomy, competence and relatedness from SDT and outcome expectations , self-efficacy , and behavioral capability from SCT , constructs shown in previous studies as likely to enhance effectiveness of nutrition and physical activity interventions. Implications . This description of how the theory constructs and procedures were used to create an entertaining serious game based on an existing evaluated health-related curriculum can help game developers, curriculum developers, and educators who wish to expand existing curricula through the development and integration of games into their work.