CREATING NARRATIVE-BASED ADAPTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON AI CONVERSATIONAL AGENTS FOR OBESITY PREVENTION

Loredana Perla, Stefania Massaro, Berardina De Carolis, Angelamaria De Feo, Maria Teresa Santacroce, Giuseppe Palestra, Vincenza Albano

Abstract


Starting from the recognition of obesity as a multi-consequential issue, this exploratory study examines the efficacy of an AI-driven conversational agent in supporting dietary behavior change through a narrative medicine approach. The preliminary phase of the study assessed participants’ motivation, digital literacy, and emotional awareness. Initial findings highlight the relevance of personalized and gender-sensitive interventions in enhancing engagement and emotional self-regulation.


Keywords


AI in education, conversational agents, narrative medicine, obesity prevention

Full Text:

PDF

References


Allouch, M., Azaria, A., & Azoulay, R. (2021). Conversational agents: Goals, technologies, vision and challenges. Sensors, 21(24), 8448. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21248448

Anand, K. & Srivastava, N. (2025). The Role of WYSA- An Experimental Study on Chatbot Assistance for Well-Being among Adults with Anxiety, Depression, and Stress. International Journal of Indian Psychology, 13(2), 670-685. DIP:18.01.058.20251302, DOI:10.25215/1302.058

Benita, J., Jaswanth, S., Bhuvaneshwar, N., Yuvaraj, R., & Narayana, Y. L. (2025). Phoenix: A conversational agent for emotional well-being and psychological support. In Proceedings of the 2025 International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems for Collaborative Intelligence (ICMSCI) (pp. 1137–1142). IEEE. Doi 10.1109/ICMSCI62561.2025.10894579

Cevasco, K. E., Morrison Brown, R. E., Woldeselassie, R., & Kaplan, S. (2024). Patient Engagement with Conversational Agents in Health Applications 2016-2022: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of medical systems, 48(1), 40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-024-02059-x

De Feo, A. (2023). La formazione dell’operatore sanitario: Dall’approccio biomedico alla “cura narrativa”. Medical Humanities & Medicina Narrativa–MHMN, 7(1), 225–234.

Fitzpatrick, K. K., Darcy, A., & Vierhile, M. (2017). Delivering cognitive behavior therapy to young adults with symptoms of depression and anxiety using a fully automated conversational agent (Woebot): A randomized controlled trial. JMIR Mental Health, 4(2), e19.

Fox, R., Park, K., Hildebrand‐Chupp, R., & Vo, A. T. (2023). Working toward eradicating weight stigma by combating pathologization: A qualitative pilot study using direct contact and narrative medicine. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 53(3), 171–184. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12989

Kocaballi, A., Berkovsky, S., Quiroz, J. C., Laranjo, L., Tong, H. L., Rezazadegan, D., Briatore, A., & Coiera, E. (2019). The personalization of conversational agents in health care: Systematic review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 21(11), e15360. https://doi.org/10.2196/15360

Miccoli, M. G., De Carolis, B., Palestra, G., & Toma, A. (2025). Enhancing digital narrative medicine through emotion analysis in conversational agents. In Proceedings of the 33rd ACM International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP 2025)

Monda, A., de Stefano, M. I., Villano, I., Allocca, S., Casillo, M., Messina, A., ... & Polito, R. (2024). Ultra-processed food intake and increased risk of obesity: A narrative review. Foods, 13(16), 2627. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods13162627

Perla L. (2012). Scritture professionali. Metodi per la formazione. Bari: Progedit

Perla, L. (2025). Educazione e sentimenti. Brescia: Morcelliana.

Perla, L., & Massaro, S. (2022). Virtual patient education scenarios: Exploratory step in the study of obesity prevention through telemedicine. In G. Casalino, M. Cimitile, P. Ducange, N. Padilla Zea, R. Pecori, P. Picerno, & P. Raviolo (Eds.), Higher education learning methodologies and technologies online (Vol. 1542, pp. 264–277). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96060-5_19

Schöbel, S., Schmitt, A., Benner, D., Saqr, M., Janson, A., & Leimeister, J. M. (2024). Charting the evolution and future of conversational agents: A research agenda along five waves and new frontiers. Information Systems Frontiers, 26(2), 729–754. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-023-10375-9

Tanas, R., Baggiani, F., Continisio, G. I., Corsello, G., Cupertino, V., De Rossi, C., & Bernasconi, S. (2022). Obesità e medicina narrativa. Quaderni ACP, 2, 78.

Tlili, A., Shehata, B., Adarkwah, M. A., Huang, R., Bozkurt, A., Jemni, M., & Burgos, D. (2023). What if the devil is my guardian angel: ChatGPT as a case study of using chatbots in education. Smart Learning Environments, 10(1), 15. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-023-00237-x

World Obesity Federation (2021). COVID-19 and obesity: The 2021 atlas. The cost of not addressing the global obesity crisis. https://www.worldobesityday.org/assets/downloads/COVID-19-and-Obesity-The-2021-Atlas.pdf

Zimmerman, B. J. (2000). Attaining self-regulation: A social cognitive perspective. In M. Boekaerts, P. R. Pintrich, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation (pp. 13–39). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012109890-2/50031-7




DOI: https://doi.org/10.32043/gsd.v9i1.1429

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2025 ITALIAN JOURNAL OF HEALTH EDUCATION, SPORT AND INCLUSIVE DIDACTICS

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Italian Journal of Health Education, Sports and Inclusive Didactics 
ISSN printed: 2532-3296