Digital twins and dietary health technologies: Applying the capability approach

Dietary apps are being used to provide information about the content of one’s diet, the nutritional content of food, and when one should eat it. These apps are said to provide greater empowerment to individuals to gain control over their health, diet, and physical well-being. Self-tracking is set to expand through the use of technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), internet-of-things (IoT), and “digital twin” technology (DT). This chapter evaluates a DT project, through the lens of the capability approach, to analyze what capability-related concerns arise in such a project. The main research question we hope to answer is: to what extent does this DT affect individuals’ capabilities to eat healthily? This chapter proposes to use the capability approach to evaluate a DT project. The DT project that we evaluated highlighted a number of key concerns when evaluated through the context of the capability approach, such as that technology teams need to factor in the diversity and different needs of individuals to benefit from these technologies (for example, the individual, social, and environmental conversion factors). The chapter demonstrates to what extent this DT project affects individuals’ capabilities to eat healthily.