Timothy Houtman, Keyue Bao
Adolescence is a time of rapid social, emotional, and physical change. New friendships, environments, and experiences often compete with behaviours that support well-being. Although many adolescents understand what’s healthy and value their well-being, taking consistent action is difficult when the benefits aren’t immediately visible.
So how can we help adolescents develop health practices that adapt to their evolving lives? Knowing what’s good for us is only part of the solution. Health education often tells us what to do but rarely shows us how to implement it. Our goal was to create a tool for health education that helps adolescents align their health behaviours with their changing environments, giving them the resources to create their own health behaviour strategies.
Are we teaching young people well-being or just informing them?
We co-designed The Mapping of Me, a mixed-reality game, with adolescents to help them develop well-being routines through digital and physical experiences. At the start of the game, players identify opportunities and use a menu of strategies to craft their path to their self-chosen health goal. Over three weeks, players work in pairs to turn intentions into actions, documenting progress digitally while holding each other accountable.
Each week, player teams meet during campfire reflections to analyze their insights. During these sessions, teammates use visual inspiration cards to share their stories, discuss challenges, and explore their motivations, resulting in a Map of Me. This process helps players understand their motivations, identify barriers, and update strategies to make them work for them. After the game, the resulting Map of Me of each player provides them with a personalized toolbox of strategies to reset and redesign health behaviours for the future.
In the rapidly changing lives of adolescents, where unhealthy options are plentiful, maintaining well-being requires adaptability. Adolescents can benefit from tools that help them turn intentions into action and adjust behaviours to meet evolving challenges. Developing the skill to turn health intentions into practice fosters a sense of agency over their well-being.
The Mapping of Me equips young people with a personalized toolbox of strategies to build evolving well-being practices. While no single strategy works for a lifetime, this approach teaches the skills to reset and redesign health behaviours supporting long-term well-being.
