Making 'Healthy' Stick with Kids

A lot has been done to get kids more

active and to make good foods more

desirable--and available--to kids.

But it is not enough!

Corporations have a strangle-hold on

kids and schools and events via ads

and sponsoring. We have to take great

strides to override that.

A lot of schools have taken up the

'soda-free' zone, which is great, but an

equal number have 'ice cream shops'

because they're easy money for the schools.

Demand better menus for your kids' schools--

they desrve it, and it's your right to campaign for it.

Here are some more aggressive, across-the-board

ideas for trying to get kids health-smart...

the earlier the better!

***

How about a video game with top notch animation and

video talent, wherein the hero and heroine are empowered

by acquiring fruits and vegetables, and lose power with

every sugary snack!

(Of course, the game would have to be all about killing people

with guns and decapitating adversaries, because that's where

the kids heads are at. You can't take on violence and diet--

save something for another day.)

How about a rock star like Justin Bieber or Rihanna (ugh!) on a

song where they're sultrily displayed on a couch with nothing

but whole grains and raw veggies adorning them...maybe even

playing suggestively with a carrot stick or a split papaya?

I bet sales of fruit and veggies would go through the roof.

(Whatever it takes, Babycakes!)

Here's the problem; you can't just tell kids what to do.

Messages have to be hammered in repeatedly for it to make

a difference, and you're competing with hour after hour of

advertising that makes all of the worst foods seem desirable.

Plus they're influenced by their friends, their families, and so on.

Kids also don't understand the future; they are wrapped up in

the here-and-now, and things like commitment, repercussions,

preparation...they don't register.

So you need a hook...something that will sell it with a sexy allure,

cause that's what these kids are trained to respond to.

Product placement could work for fruits and veggies

like it has for sodas and chips.

But we have to take this seriously.

People say it's minor stuff--but they're

looking at the short term, not the long.

Let's see kids presented with pictures of

people in their 30s and 40s with severe

diabetic complications, like they show the

emphysema lungs of smokers to shock kids.

Let's see the morbid obesity shots as

the EFFECT of the actions they're taking now.

Something has to change.