For tens of thousands of years parents have been feeding their children. Mothers and Fathers provided the milk, fruits, vegetables, solid food when the baby was ready etc. Now we find out that Michelle and Barack Obama know parents are as dumb as a rock and have no idea how to feed children. So they took $750,000 of tax money and created a video game! Yup, a video game—so parents can use their smartphones and tablets to learn to give milk to babies.
The next time government says it needs more money tell them to create a video game on how to create jobs instead. Here in governmentese is what the money was flushed down the toilet for:
“Video games, therefore, offer a compelling intervention mechanism for delivering parenting skill training. Games appear most engaging when they involve a storyline (also called a “narrative”). Narrative is a primary form of human communication and has had significant impact on cognition, affect, and health behavior.”
Photo Courtesy of newfilm.dk, Flickr.
HHS Spends $750,000 On a Healthy Eating Video Game, But We Have A Better Idea
By Michael Hausam, IJR, 8/13/14
Now that all the pressing problems of the country have been neatly cleaned up and put away, the Department of Health and Human Services has given Houston gaming company Archimage $747,891 to create a video game to help parents learn how to properly teach their children to eat vegetables.
A portion of the description from the National Institutes of Health web site:
Parents are important influencers on the dietary intake of young children but they commonly report difficulty getting their child to eat vegetables. Food “parenting practices” identify procedures parents implement to maximize the likelihood their child will consume a healthy diet.*
Some parents require training to use effective food parenting practices, and training through behavioral interventions has been shown effective. Video games are a pervasive and persuasive form of mass communication. Providing engaging experiences that capture and focus a player’s attention, video games enable theory-based behavior change to be delivered for maximal effect. Simulations of real world experiences in low risk environments with feedback have proven an effective behavior training procedure.*
Video games, therefore, offer a compelling intervention mechanism for delivering parenting skill training. Games appear most engaging when they involve a storyline (also called a “narrative”). Narrative is a primary form of human communication and has had significant impact on cognition, affect, and health behavior.
In other words, parents don’t naturally know how to put food in their children’s mouths and so keeping them even more focused on their smart phone is the answer to solving the age-old conundrum. And if in the process we can fleece the taxpayer out of a cool 3 quarters of a mil, all the better.
A quick click to Archimage’s website shows a host of articles on the subject of healthy eating. The most current being published February 25, 2011. The “Latest and Greatest” game they have is from March 11, 2010 and appears as if it was the result of a 4th grade computer-programming semester. On the other hand, the copyright for the site does extend through 2014, so not everything they’re doing is ancient history, as least as far as legal compliance goes.
Back here in the current day, the details on the NIH site show that in the last 2 years almost $17 million on children’s food projects. This includes another $583,509 to the same company. Money well-spent, we’d hazard to guess.
After a long and harrowing all-hands-on-deck staff meeting, we at IJR came up with an idea we’ll propose at no cost to anyone. Simply do what parents have done since the beginning of time – sternly say “You’re not getting up from the table until all of those vegetables on your plate are finished.”
You’re welcome.
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