Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Nudging kids to health
This is a quick follow up on my recent post, "How to get kids physically active? Reward them!," which describes a commercial offering (Switch2Health) targeted at kids that provides them with incentives for engaging in physical activity.
As we know, childhood obesity or excess weight threatens the healthy future of one third of American children. Many people have committed themselves to addressing this critical health challenge—the team behind S2H, Paul Pierce, and First Lady Michele Obama. Mrs. Obama has been spearheading the new government initiative—Let's Move—to tackle the problem of childhood obesity.
The Nudge Blog, the running collection of observations about choice architecture form Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, recently had this to say about how "nudges" will play a role in the Let's Move initiative:
Let’s Move is a comprehensive effort to combine healthier decision making about food and exercise with environments that help make those decisions easier.
As part of the initiative, a number of nudges will be used, including
1) Consumer friendly labels that take into account the actual sizes Americans now eat and are visible on the front of food packages.
2) Tax incentives to encourage grocers to open stores in what are known as “food deserts” — areas without access to fresh fruits and vegetables.
3) A collaboration with the American Academy of Pediatrics to encourage doctors to monitor children’s body mass index.
4) A national goal of having kids exercise for an hour a day.
When I read through this list of nudges, #4 sounded really familiar. It is the stated goal of S2H and its partners (see Paul Pierce's site, which seeks to empower kids to incorporate "physical fitness and healthy eating while encouraging a commitment/pledge of 60 minutes per day dedicated to physical activity.") Of course, S2H is out to make a buck, too, but at least they are trying to do it for a good cause. And given the obesity epidemic, I think we need to embrace any means necessary of achieving this goal.