By TONKA14,
SparkPeople Blogger
9/27/2010
I received this blog link in my e-mail inbox last week. As the mother of high school students and a nutrition professional, I had mixed feelings about the information it contained.
On one hand I was excited that a new Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation has been created to "help reduce obesity, especially childhood obesity by 2015." That is a great thing right? Healthy living is something our company is very interested in and what I spend my time promoting each day. The e-mail however raised concerns with brand marketing that would take place in public schools. The headline and information shared made me a little concerned so I did a little more research.
The Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation is a CEO-led organization made up of over "100 retailers, food and beverage manufacturers, restaurants, sporting goods and insurance companies, trade associations and non-governmental organizations (NGO's) and professional sports organizations." That seems like a great collaborative focus that will provide far-reaching benefits. The collaboration will be focusing on three different areas.
- The Marketplace - To Control Calories While Preserving Nutrition A variety of companies from Campbell's and General Mills to Kraft Foods, PepsiCo, and Sara Lee have created initiatives that focus on healthier alternatives for many of our favorite products. This is a good thing and something that can provide a great deal of benefit for all our families by changing the items produced for consumption.
- The Workplace - To Help Employees Learn to Live Healthier Lifestyles This is something our company takes very seriously. At SparkPeople, most of our employees "live the brand" and we want other companies to encourage healthy living with their employees as well. Encouraging companies to promote employee wellness programs is a great initiative and one we hope really takes off.
- The Schools - To Help Students Learn to Combine Nutrition and Physical Activity for a Healthy Weight With a focus on elementary aged children from 6-11, a teaching program is being developed with a focus on energy balance. The American Dietetic Association and the PE4life organizations are serving as partners in program development. A new online resource called energy balance 101 has been designed to help teachers and families find information and resources to make positive lifestyle changes. Discovery Education and Parents magazine are also a part of this initiative. These are all education-focused groups that know how to deliver health related information. Providing nutrition and exercise information to school age children and families has been lacking in public education. This alliance seems to be a great way to get reliable information to those that are interested in receiving it.
Spreading health and wellness information that helps people live healthier lives and achieve healthier weights is what we focus on every day. It is exciting to learn of new initiatives being developed to promote healthier choices in the marketplace, improved employee health options, and teaching healthy habits to elementary aged children. I hope we see healthier product options on our store shelves very soon. Although employee health initiatives will be up to each company and small business, more than likely this area will take off as companies seek to keep their health care costs as low as possible. Since states have individual education standards, it will be interesting to see how some of these new education modules may fit into already existing curriculums. As far as the main concern of the blog related to brand marketing in schools, we will have to see. Many brands are already in our schools .It will be interesting to see if healthier options begin to show up.
What do you think? Should there be any concern with this new initiative and brand marketing in schools? Isn't this collaboration a positive move in the right direction?
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