StoryEcho: A Generative Child-as-Actor Storytelling System for Picky-Eating Intervention

儿童挑食会影响饮食多样性，也容易让家庭进餐反复陷入压力。团队先访谈照护者和幼儿园教师，并在多轮评审后形成 StoryEcho。系统让孩子以持续角色进入个性化故事，再用真实进食行为影响后续情节，把非进餐时段的故事、餐后轻量反馈和行为驱动更新接入日常家庭生活。团队随后与 11 个学龄前儿童家庭开展组间实地研究。结果提供了初步证据：孩子更愿意接近和尝试低偏好食物，父母在进食上的施压也有所下降。

Picky eating in children can undermine dietary diversity and the development of healthy eating habits, while also creating recurring tension in family feeding routines. Prior interventions have explored food-centered designs, enhanced utensils, and mealtime interactive systems, but few position children as active participants in intervention processes that extend beyond single mealtime interactions. To better understand everyday responses to picky eating and child-acceptable intervention mechanisms, we conducted a formative study with caregivers and kindergarten teachers. Based on the resulting design considerations and iterative stakeholder review, we designed StoryEcho, a generative child-as-actor storytelling system for picky eating intervention. StoryEcho engages children outside mealtimes through personalized stories in which the child appears as a persistent story character and later shapes story development through real-world food-related behavior. The system combines non-mealtime story engagement, lightweight post-meal feedback, and behavior-informed story updates to support repeated intervention across everyday family routines. We evaluated StoryEcho in a between-group field study with 11 families of preschool children. Results provide preliminary evidence that StoryEcho can significantly increase children's willingness to approach and try target low-preference foods while reducing parental pressure around feeding. These findings suggest the promise of generative child-as-actor storytelling as a design approach for home-based behavior support that unfolds through recurring family routines.

据 arXiv:2604.08114 摘要整理Verbatim from arXiv:2604.08114

我实现了从餐后记录到后续故事更新的数据流，并补齐面向家庭流程的阅读与互动日志、失败重试和端到端检查。干预设计及与 11 个家庭开展的五日研究是团队共同完成的。I implemented the data flow that turns a post-meal record into a later story update. I also added reading and interaction logs, retry handling, and end-to-end checks for the family-facing workflow. The intervention design and five-day field study with 11 families were shared team efforts.