Philips Design’s exploration into reconnecting people with their bodies
The latest Philips Design Probe, Self Health, takes a provocative and unconventional look at areas that could have a profound effect on the way we understand and monitor our own health and make lifestyle choices 15-20 years from now.
Lifestyle Diseases
Lifestyle diseases like stress and depression are increasingly becoming the main causes of illness in the Western world. Our fast-paced lives, carried out in a digital world as far removed from daily human contact as people have ever been, are to blame.
It is estimated that by 2050 one in every two people will suffer from diabetes. Childhood obesity levels which have been soaring in the West are now becoming a global issue. Over the coming decades, Alzheimer’s, depression and heart disease will affect billions of people. Many of these diseases have their root in our modern lifestyle and cannot be solved by Western medicine’s curative, clinical and pharmacological approach. The Self Health Probe looks at different approaches to the medical issues facing us today from curative to preventive health, from pharmacological to naturopathic diet based solutions and from clinical to home care.
Reconnecting with the body
The Self Health Probe team tracked and interpreted issues such as; the shift in emphasis from curative to preventative medicine, the role of the mind-body connection in health, differences in cultural perception of health, modern lifestyle diseases, possibilities and issues of self-diagnosis and trust mechanisms. This research uncovered questions about our relationship with our bodies and how people might be challenged to take more responsibility and interest in their health to prevent future illness.
The project then focused further exploration on a number of themes within the area of Self Health –
• Body Dysmorphia looks at the rise in anorexia, boulemia, morbid obesity, addiction to plastic surgery and other conditions that are exacerbated by the increasing media representation of iconic beauty that is unattainable for most people.
• Body Talk looks at ways to remind people of how lifestyle choices affect overall health over a lifetime.
• Touch Hunger examines our growing physical isolation from each other and systematically limit physical contact, the therapeutic effects of which are very significant.
The concepts and ideas generated in these theme areas are being used as a basis for interviews to gain deeper insights into people’s preferable futures. And the Self Health Probe explorations will feed into upcoming design-led innovation projects.
Design Probes
The Philips Design Probes program is a dedicated ‘far-future’ research initiative to track trends and developments that may ultimately evolve into mainstream issues that have a significant impact on business. Exploring the future, and how people will interact with each other and themselves, is integral to Philips Design’s aim of achieving people focused design solutions. By imagining extreme versions of far future scenarios, the Design Probe team attempts to understand more about the issues that affect people today and tomorrow.