ShoppingCoach: Using Diminished Reality to Prevent Unhealthy Food Choices in an Offline Supermarket Scenario

Non-communicable diseases, such as obesity and diabetes, have a significant global impact on health outcomes. While governments worldwide focus on promoting healthy eating, individuals still struggle to follow dietary recommendations. Augmented Reality (AR) might be a useful tool to emphasize specific food products at the point of purchase. However, AR may also add visual clutter to an already complex supermarket environment. Instead, reducing the visual prevalence of unhealthy food products through Diminished Reality (DR) could be a viable alternative: We present ShoppingCoach, a DR prototype that identifies supermarket food products and visually diminishes them dependent on the deviation of the target product's composition from dietary recommendations. In a study with 12 participants, we found that ShoppingCoach increased compliance with dietary recommendations from 75% to 100% and reduced decision time by 41%. These results demonstrate the promising potential of DR in promoting healthier food choices and thus enhancing public health.