{"id":2959,"date":"2018-01-18T05:21:53","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T05:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/52.10.1.109\/?p=2959"},"modified":"2018-01-20T01:45:15","modified_gmt":"2018-01-20T01:45:15","slug":"to-win-for-losing-weight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/?p=2959","title":{"rendered":"To win for losing weight"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Entrepreneur Eesha Sheikh is preparing to launch a Kickstarter campaign for Keeko, a fitness game she is developing at Innovation Pavilion, a high-tech co-working center in Centennial. She was inspired to create the app by her own difficult battle with childhood obesity. Photo by Peter Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Childhood obesity prompts young entrepreneur to create fitness gaming app<\/i><\/h4>\n

BY PETER JONES<\/strong>
\nNEWS EDITOR<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
A primitive prototype for Keeko, which is expected to eventually incorporate a wearable fitness band that would track a player\u2019s progress and synch it with the onscreen character. Photo by Peter Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In an era in which sedentary electronic \u201cdevicing\u201d may be among the greatest obstacles to fitness among young people, leave it to Eesha Sheikh to toss a common assumption into calorie-burning headstands.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy fight the tide? Just move with the tide,\u201d the 26-year-old entrepreneur said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sheikh means \u201cmove\u201d quite literally, by winning one for personal health in the same gaming world that birthed a new generation of cellphone-dependent teenagers. <\/span><\/p>\n

A study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity<\/i> says electronic devices have had a significant and negative influence on cardio-respiratory fitness among college students, concluding \u201chigh-frequency users were more likely \u2026 to report forgoing opportunities for physical activity in order to use their cellphones.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sheikh, a Centennial-based millennial, is running circles around such studies, hoping to prove that the answer to such problems as childhood obesity and poor fitness might be found in the same device that houses such apps as time-consuming Facebook, Tinder and Minecraft. <\/span><\/p>\n

But first, Sheikh is playing another game, crowdfunding Keeko, her in-development game app designed to help players reach new levels of health and fitness through their own behavior and that of a personally designed onscreen character.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about making exercise fun,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re doing it in a way where your focus is the game. The right balance of psychology, game design and game theory\u2014that is what is going to set this apart from all the other apps out there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And it isn\u2019t just exercise at play. Eating habits and other lifestyle choices are part of Keeko\u2019s game design. Some are already incorporated into a prototype that Playpal, Sheikh\u2019s parent company, has tested in focus groups. Plans are to incorporate a wearable fitness band that would track a player\u2019s progress and synch it with the onscreen character.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is being tracked\u2014your oxygen levels, your heart rate, your activity, how much you\u2019re walking,\u201d Sheikh said. \u201cYour game play and how it evolves and how your character transforms throughout the gameplay is a direct consequence of your life. You are the game.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One\u2019s food choices would be entered manually, at least for the time being.<\/span><\/p>\n

Players would also be able to compete with or track the progress of friends and strangers as they strive to improve the lives of their character\u2014err themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

The entire apparatus\u2014including the wearable band or ring and an app-trackable water bottle\u2014would likely sell for something in the neighborhood of $100 to $150, Sheikh said. <\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s an app for that<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"A game like Keeko is something this tech entrepreneur wishes she had 20 years ago when she was struggling with her own childhood weight problem. <\/span><\/p>\n

Born in Pakistan, her family emigrated to Texas when Sheikh was in elementary school, where the young transplant was bullied\u2014not for her family\u2019s Muslim faith or social customs, but for her weight, which had reached 170 pounds by the time she was 8.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very bad. I was called the human jelly doughnut,\u201d she said. \u201cThe popular kids used to come and just throw my food away. I became a very aggressive child. I would cry and scream at my parents and they didn\u2019t know what to do with it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The family\u2019s Pakistani cultural norms did not help matters when Sheikh\u2019s traditional father and mother failed to take the problem seriously at first.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was only when a doctor finally diagnosed the grade-schooler with clinical obesity, running afoul of the family\u2019s health insurance, that her parents realized how serious the situation really was. Sheikh\u2019s father soon incentivized his daughter\u2019s weight loss with the promise of new toys, and in less than two years she lost 65 pounds\u2014though not in the best way possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI did it in a very unhealthy manner,\u201d she said. \u201cI went on fad diets. I went on banana and milk for a month. The doctor didn\u2019t refer me to a nutritionist, which I thought was the weirdest thing ever. I love to eat. It\u2019s hard to suppress it even now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As a young woman, Sheikh\u2019s struggle continued. It was not until she was in high school that she says she fully understood what her battles with fitness were all about.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI started to realize that my self-worth was more in my intellect and my service to the world,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got Victoria\u2019s Secret, America\u2019s Next Top Model. <\/i>We forget the service we can give to the world as women, as opposed to just looking like Barbie dolls.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sheikh would eventually receive her bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees in medicinal chemistry, with an eye on somehow helping others. Her research was published and she was working to create cancer drugs by the time she was 18.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been an overachiever. I don\u2019t think I would have been this courageous or ambitious if I hadn\u2019t [gone through the weight-loss ordeal] at such a young age. I believed in myself like a crazy person,\u201d she said. <\/span><\/p>\n

After returning to Pakistan to work in her repatriated father\u2019s business, Sheikh says she had a revelation about her future in helping the world through technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like if I combined both passions together, it could create something really magnificent,\u201d she said. \u201cI thought about the running-game genre. What about myself when I was a big kid running as a character collecting good foods and avoiding the bad foods\u2014and what if it got synched with my body?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2015, Sheikh relocated to Colorado and Centennial\u2019s Innovation Pavilion to find her niche. With a few thousand dollars to her name, the young entrepreneur began supporting her dream project by developing other games, including one for Pepsi\u2019s Sting energy drink.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sheikh also hopes to raise between $500,000 and $1 million on a soon-to-launch Kickstarter campaign. If Keeko turns out to be worth its weight in financial investment, who knows where her socially conscious gaming may lead her?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI come from a culture where women don\u2019t get to do this,\u201d Sheikh said. \u201cThey don\u2019t get to leave their husbands for two and half months after getting married. Women don\u2019t work. Women are expected to conform to certain roles\u2014this is the biggest revolution of all of these.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Could a game that sees a young Middle Eastern woman get points for striking out independently and starting her own international business be in the offing?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be amazing. That\u2019s a really good idea,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Childhood obesity prompts young entrepreneur to create fitness gaming app BY PETER JONES NEWS EDITOR In an era in which sedentary electronic \u201cdevicing\u201d may be among the greatest obstacles to fitness among young people, leave it to Eesha Sheikh to toss a common assumption into calorie-burning headstands. \u201cWhy fight the tide? Just move with the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,47,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-innovation","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}