Fatworld and the politics of nutrition

Persuasive Games, makers of Airport Security, have a new game in the works called Fatworld that “It explores the relationships between obesity, nutrition, and socioeconomics in the contemporary U.S.”

Sounds like an interesting premise that looks rather complicated (yet compelling) when you read their description:

In Fatworld, you create a world, design a character, and live out an accelerated life in that world. You’ll have to construct menus and recipes, decide what to eat and what to avoid, exercise (or not), and run a restaurant business to serve the rest of your town.

By choosing your character’s dietary and exercise habits, you can experiment with the constraints of nutrition and economics as they affect your character’s general health. Will it be wheatgrass and soy? Or fried chicken at every meal? How much can you afford to spend on food, and how does that affect your general health?

As a Fatworld inhabitant, you can choose starting weights and health conditions, including predispositions towards ailments like diabetes, heart disease, or food allergies. You can design your daily meal plan, choosing from hundreds of ingredients and recipes that ship with the game, or you can build your own from scratch and share them with friends online. Then you can exercise by walking around or playing a variety of exercise minigames. Or you can influence public policy by visiting the Govern-O-Mat, or try to get a glimpse into your own character’s health—if you can afford it—at the Health-O-Mat.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays when they release it…