Media Mention

Kids Nutrition Report: Shoving the kids off the couch

August 2004 - Concern about the incidence of obesity and diabetes in American children swelled quickly last year and focused initially on what kids were putting in their mouths. But in recent months, policy makers and children's advocates have begun to pay more attention to the other side of the equation as well: the appalling lack of exercise and attention to everyday fitness among today's kids and their parents. Dale Buss reports.

Expect childhood fitness to become an ever-noisier topic in American popular culture, schools and decision-making. That is because companies large and small have begun publicly pursuing this concern, as a source of potential new sales and profits - as well as to assuage perceptions that they have been very guilty of contributing to the problem in the first place. But while motivations of the new-programme sponsors vary, there's no argument that, collectively, their efforts represent an encouraging sign. Regardless of the long-term outcome of America's new War Against Obesity, it's a popular army for businesses to join these days. Consider the following:

• Nickelodeon will dump its normal kids' programming for three hours on Saturday morning, 2 October, instead, airing a graphic that tells stunned young viewers that it's time to go outside and play.
• Giant food and beverage companies are hatching children's fitness at a rapid pace these days, including PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and Kraft. Already having jumped on the better-for-you food bandwagon, these companies are now addressing the equally compelling problem of young consumers' lack of physical activity.
• Recreation and diet-related brands including ESPN, Nike, and Jenny Craig, are stepping up efforts to increase their association with greater kids' opportunities for fitness.
• An explosion of entrepreneurial companies are capitalizing on the groundswell of concern about fitness, from Sportwall, which makes unique sets of fitness-related equipment for schools, to Kideosyncrasy, which produces an exercise video for kids. In doing so, all of these enterprises are betting that they'll be able to tap into what apparently remains a common denominator among today's children as well as yesterday's: the desire to be truly fit and healthy. And they're counting on parents, teachers and other responsible parties in kids' lives to respond to these initiatives - and then go beyond them.

TV and video-games share the blame for obesity

"Most people have an innate drive to be healthy," says Steve Coons, author of a new fitness-lifestyle programme for kids. "It's just difficult to tap into that innate sense these days; people just don't know how. Parents are too busy with their 24-x-7 lifestyle. Meanwhile, kids are being constantly bombarded by bad media messages. What's finally happening is that more people are trying to figure out how to change all of that."

It's impossible to draw a meaningful picture of the lack of inactivity of today's American kids except by contrast with their parents', and earlier, generations. In some senses, that picture of the past is too general and perhaps idyllic. But the reality was that active play of all sorts - neighbourhood games, push-mowing the lawn, flying kites, riding bikes, and taking walks as well as participating in organized sports - was a much bigger part of the reality of the average child, urban, rural or suburban. In the last 20 years, the rise in television watching, the boom in video-game playing, a relative lack of parental supervision and other trends have converged to make young Jason and Jessica much more sedentary beings than their parents, Jeff and Judy, ever were.

Greatly exacerbating the situation over the last two decades was the breathtaking disappearance of traditional physical-fitness programmes from the curriculum requirements of what became the vast majority of American schools. Several factors contributed to the reversal, but what really doomed most "PE" classes came over the last few years in the form of much stiffer academic standards that were enacted at federal and state levels. If they still existed, "gym classes" were about the easiest thing for school administrators to push aside.

Thus, the American epidemics of childhood obesity and Type II diabetes in kids are testaments not only to a monstrous deterioration in the eating and nutritional habits of the average U.S. family but also of an accompanying decline in physical activity for the typical kid. No one is predicting how long it might take for the twin wedges of better eating and more exercise to begin to turn the problem around.

Getting kids up and running

"Behaviour change with anything is tough," says Molly White, director of U.S. community affairs for Nike Corp., the giant athletic-wear brand based in Beaverton, Ore. "A lot of people like to look at anti-obesity efforts as a new version of the anti-tobacco campaign of a generation ago. So how many decades of effort and messages and programmes is it going to take, how much carrot-and-stick to change something this massive?"

Schools and policy makers and politicians are starting to feel public heat on the issue and changing the landscape a bit. Forty-eight states now have some sort of physical-education requirement, and recent legislation has focused on refining PE requirements or encouraging positive physical-activity programmes for students, says Amy Winterfeld, an analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures, in Denver. Legislation introduced in Vermont in 2003 and carried over to this year defines physical-education as a daily programme of moderate to vigorous physical activity - certainly a step in the right direction. Connecticut enacted legislation that requires daily recess for kids up through fifth-grade as a means of promoting physical-activity.

Nike helps inactive kids to "just do it"

But clearly such public-sector efforts will be slow-moving, which is where businesses now are trying to fill in the gap. Nike is trying to do its part with a programme that represents a typical corporate shift in focus toward greater social sensitivity about kids' fitness: There's something in it for kids; there's something in it for Nike. For many years, the company's outreach programme had consisted largely of cash grants to kids' sports teams. But three years ago, Nike executives decided to take a more strategic approach to those programmes and came up with the idea of orienting them around a general lack of exercise and physical activity among kids, not just athletic kids.

A couple of years ago, Nike began its new approach by targeting inactive kids with new programmes that were likely to get them more physically active. Nike went to several hundred Boys & Girls' Clubs around the U.S. and asked club administrators to get inactive kids to identify themselves - and ask them what kinds of physical exertion they actually would be interested in doing. Out of that research, Boys & Girls' Clubs set up 32 Nike-funded programmes in 16 cities that presented non-traditional activities, including "wilderness camping" in East Harlem and a "heritage canoeing" programme in Hawaii.

The second phase of the programme sent Nike to coaches, teachers, parents and others around kids who could influence their attitude toward exercise and their behaviour. Nike sponsored training for sports coaches to make them more culturally sensitive, for example, and paid for workshops for parents of children in Los Angeles who were participating in organized sports programmes, to help them understand how to make kids feel successful and stay involved. This year, Nike is expanding that portion of the programme to New York City.

The latest wrinkle is a programme Nike calls PE2GO (physical-education "to go"), which it launched as a pilot last school year in six cities with the goal of reaching more than 6,400 fourth- and fifth-graders in 43 elementary schools and prompting them to engage in more physical activity through what the company is calling "new physical education." A programme called Sports Play and Active Recreation for Kids (SPARK) at San Diego State University helped Nike develop PE2GO.

A new approach to PE

In the physical-education classes that boomers experienced, there were only 3.5 minutes of activity for each 30 minutes of class, Nike research figured. The rest consists of kids standing in line or waiting around after being eliminated from an activity. "It was punitive," White says. "Kids don't like traditional PE. But in New PE, kids are constantly moving, and every kid has fun. It's about disguising fitness, learning basic skills, and playing, in a constant 30 minutes of movement to help them have a blast and see themselves as successful, active people."

For example, one New PE game is a form of baseball in which the fielded ball is thrown to every kid on the field before it is thrown to home plate. Dance programmes are another staple of this approach. To encourage schools and teachers to embrace New PE, Nike is donating to each participating school, a $10,000 equipment kit that includes hockey sticks, balls, parachutes, batons and a variety of other useful play pieces. White says that many teachers enjoyed the programme so much that they found ways to squeeze two or three New PE sessions a week into classrooms where, previously, physical activity was practically nil.

"Our long-term goal is to get PE in front of every kid," White says. "People have to understand the importance of PE in keeping kids academically focused as well as healthy."
Other brands associated with fitness have also become major players in the kids' fitness scene. Many health-club chains, for example, are offering discounted or free memberships to teenagers and even younger kids for the summer. And Jenny Craig, the diet provider, plans to begin a giving campaign by January to fund research and implementation of new programmes to help cut obesity in kids, including a fitness element, and advice for helping parents to become more appropriate role models.

Food companies are also jumping on the bandwagon in droves. Kraft and Coca-Cola have just pledged a total of $12 million to a five-year rollout, beginning in January, of a programme they're calling Triple Play, an after-school health and wellness initiative that also, like Nike's effort, will be funneled through Boys' & Girls' Clubs and its 3,400 locations across the U.S. They're still working out details and assembling an advisory board, but the companies already know that they want to go beyond just encouraging exercise: The "triple" represents what Kraft and Coca-Cola are calling "body, mind and soul."

"It's important to address all those aspects of a person," says Kris Charles, director of corporate affairs for Northfield, Ill.-based Kraft. "It's more than a matter of just calories in and calories out, especially for kids and young adults. Self-esteem is a critical part of solving this problem, too, and body image is a critical aspect of nutrition and diet. So all three of these things need to work together."

The companies say they'll evaluate Triple Play on the basis of a series of measures including the increase in the amount of time each day that club members engage in physical activity, demonstrations of an enhanced awareness of healthy habits related to nutrition and fitness, and an "improved ability to interact positively with peers."

Likewise, PepsiCo is launching this fall a programme it calls Balance First, which is intended to reach 2.5 million grade-school children with word about "the importance of energy balance - making sure you are moving enough to compensate for the amount of food you eat."

A new business in new games

Perhaps recognizing its complicity in turning even previously active kids into couch potatoes who would rather watch other people move around instead of doing it themselves, Bristol, Conn.-based ESPN has launched a new programme called Play Your Way that is meant to encourage kids from ages 9 through 14 to play Physically Active Games (PAGs).

Research tapped by ESPN has informed them that, among other factors, the freedom to be empowered to create their own games encourages kids to get off their rears and participate. This may involve coming up with entirely new games - such as one that a group of kids invented that used a football, a basketball, a bandana and a whistle - as well as modifying traditional neighborhood games such as hide-and-seek. Even permissible is making up PAGs based on TV shows that kids watch.

"It's the best way to encourage kids who aren't actively involved, or who are off to the beat of their own drum, to get involved," says Juliet Gilliam, ESPN's corporate-outreach director. ESPN is working with a variety of youth and recreational organizations to get its new programme off the ground, with the long-term hope of teaming up in a major way with other sponsors, such as sporting-goods manufacturers' associations.

Entrepreneurs also have jumped into the breach with games and programmes that seek to capitalize on the nation's growing guilt and anxiety about raising a generation of inert lumps of flesh. Sportwall International Inc., for instance, creates and manufactures what it calls "full-body computer games" that combine some of the hand eye coordination skills that kids have picked up via video games with the physical movements of traditional games and activities.

Targets are of different colours and numbers and geometric shapes and letters, for example. Kids can be instructed to spell words by hitting a series of letters by throwing a ball, or do mathematical calculations in the same way. "It bridges that gap between academic and physical education," says Cathi Lamberti, founder of Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Sportwall International. "Kids become more interested in the game than in whether they looked good or bad. Technologically oriented kids are sort of familiar with how these games work; it's not a question of fitness but of whether they understand the game. And when they physically sweat and get their heart rates up, endorphins get released - and the whole exercise experience becomes even happier for them."

"That's why this works well with entry-level kids who already are inhibited about sports," Lamberti continues. "We're bringing in kids who aren't traditionally introduced to sports by their parents or their families, and are left out. That's the vast majority of kids, actually."

Already, Sportwall has supplied hundreds of schools that educate about 130,000 kids around the country, many of which are relying on Sportwall games as a new form of physical education. "Some schools are even beginning to open early and close late to accommodate kids who want to do more Sportwall," Lamberti says.

Nickelodeon is depriving kids of something rather than supplying them with something in order to prompt more physical activity. In a dramatic gesture sure to garner lots of media coverage, the New York City-based cable-TV network plans its programming turnoff for 2 October during a period when it typically has about 1.5 million viewers ages six through 11. It's the dependable slot for popular Nickelodeon cartoons including The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron.

But on that day, Nickelodeon will tell kids to do something else - something more active - with their time. When the network comes back on the air at 3 p.m. that day, its first show will be a live music and sports special that encourages young viewers to stay healthy and active.
The real test of the effectiveness of Nickelodeon's gesture, of course, will be what kids do on 9 October.

Back to Press Center