Pegaso Fit4Future was set up to fight childhood and teenage obesity, teaching young adults about nutrition and physical exercise by acting through their favourite tools of communication and entertainment: smartphones, videogames and social networks. Europe-wide health-related measures and policies must contend with the great challenges of obesity and illnesses associated with an unhealthy lifestyle, which together make up 7% of the EU’s entire spend on healthcare. For most people, knowing how to stay healthy is simply not enough to convince them to adopt a healthy lifestyle. To address this topic, Pegaso had implemented a learning platform to teach young adults about the importance of physical exercise and good diet, using the mechanics of games and team challenges in a social media environment. Youngsters are expected to exert positive peer pressure via a smartphone application, a virtual community and an educational video game. These tools will work alongside Pegaso’s smart tee-shirt, designed to monitor the teenagers’ physical parameters, helping in the prevention of obesity and other health issues caused by lack of exercise and bad diet.

Pegaso – personalised guidance services for optimising lifestyle management in teenagers through awareness, motivation and engagement – has received a funding of 9 million euros from the European Commission within the Seventh Framework Programme, ICT for Health, and is coordinated by the Department of Design at Politecnico di Milano together with Fondazione Politecnico di Milano. This collaboration between 17 European partners in seven EU countries lasted three years and concluded in September 2017. Over this period, the project involved 400 young adults in Milan, Barcelona, Nottingham and Edinburgh.