A Persuasive Mobile Game for Reducing Sedentary Behaviour and Promoting Physical Activity

This paper presents TreeCare, a persuasive mobile game for reducing sedentary behaviour and improving physical activity among adults. The game uses the tree metaphor to create a link between a tree’s health and player’s physical activity level in the real-world. Each player is initially assigned an empty tree that gradually grows leaves and then fruits as the player becomes physically active (measured using step counts). The tree withers as the player reduces his/her activity level, thereby reinforcing the significance of regular physical activity and the negative effect of sedentary behaviour.