To curb growing obesity among American children, the US government's Department of Agriculture unveiled the first food pyramid for 6- to 11-year-olds. For attracting the interest of the target group, the dietary advice in the pyramid has been communicated with the help of fun educational aids and also an interactive computer game, called MyPyramid Blast Off, featuring a rocket ship.
Through MyPyramid for Kids educational material, the government is aiming at educating children about nutritional guidelines that have oft been repeated but seldom followed. So this time round, federal experts decided to use the tool that works best on impressionable minds – video games. In the game, children load a rocket ship with the right combination of healthy foods.
So load fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat or fat-free milk and lean meat, and the rocket is ready for blast off to Planet Power. If filled with fries, junk food, colas and other unhealthy foods, forget about the rocket taking off. In addition to the game, teachers of elementary schools would also be given MyPyramid for Kids classroom materials, lesson plans, and posters to weave good food habits into their students' lives.
Besides giving the regular fruit, vegetables, whole grains and calcium-rich diet, the child pyramid also endorses 60 minutes of exercise everyday. These exercises could be running, walking the dog, swimming, biking or even taking the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator.
The new pyramid, like its adult counterpart, has several bands that indicate the composition of a certain group of foods in the child's diet. The orange band is for grains, while the green band indicates vegetables. Red band is for fruits, blue for milk and indigo for meats and beans. Oils, which should be used sparingly are contained in a yellow band.
Mike Johanns, the US agriculture secretary, said the new pyramid would help contain obesity, which has more gone up more than 100 per cent in the last 30 years. “We don't want this generation of young people to be the first generation that lives fewer years than their parents. This is a fun approach to addressing the very serious problem of childhood obesity,” he said.
However, many nutrition groups have criticized the new pyramid for not doing enough to curb the menace of obesity, both in children and adults. “The materials don't even have the guts to urge kids to drink less soda pop, to eat less candy. If the government really wanted to improve kids' eating habits, it would get junk food out of schools, it would ban junk food advertising on television, it would require calorie counts on fast-food menu boards and sponsor hard-hitting educational materials,” said Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in Public Interest (CSPI).
“When McDonald's wants to reach kids, it turns to television advertising first and foremost. If government is to improve kids' eating habits it should invest hundreds of millions of dollars on television advertising promoting healthy diets,” he added.
Meanwhile, some kids took to the video game. A third-grader who played the game loaded her rocket with a vegetable burger, spinach salad and chicken. But she said her brother would never be able to take off because 'he would keep on putting cookies on there'.
