As the childhood obesity rate grows dramatically, we need to help children gain a greater awareness of their eating habits. The Lunch Log project is an online food diary that helps children between the ages of nine and eleven visualize their personal eating habits and learn about the nutritional value of the food they consume for lunch. The Lunch Log project adopts a photographic food diary method inspired by Lydia Zepeda’s research, which finds that photographic food diaries are more likely to raise personal awareness and to change eating behavior than written diaries.

Unlike other food diaries, the Lunch Log project takes a visual approach to data entry, navigation, and review in a social context. It allows children to post photos of the lunches they consume and review their eating habits by collectively categorizing their lunch photos. Teachers post several categorization questions. Children answer these categorization questions by selecting the lunch photos that fit the criteria.

The Lunch Log project deploys a graphical user interface for data entry, navigation, and review that exploits design conventions familiar and appealing to children.