Joanna Cosgrove05.06.10
Last month First Lady Michelle Obama stepped up her commitment to getting kids healthy when she kicked off "Apps for Healthy Kids"—a new component of the "Let’s Move" campaign that challenged software designers to create fun and engaging electronic tools and games that would drive children, especially “tweens” (ages 9-12)—directly or through their parents—to eat better and be more physically active.
The motivation behind Let’s Move is to end childhood obesity within a generation. According to the White House, childhood obesity or excess weight threatens the healthy future of one third of American children. Approximately $150 billion is spent every year to treat obesity-related conditions, and that number is growing. Obesity rates tripled during the past 30 years, a trend that means, for the first time in our history, American children may face a shorter expected lifespan than their parents.
Submissions for entry into the Apps for Healthy Kids competition must use the USDA nutrition dataset recently made available to the public through the Open Government Initiative. The dataset provides information on total calories, calories from “extras” (solid fats and added sugars), and MyPyramid food groups for over 1000 commonly eaten foods.
There are two categories to which designers can submit their Apps: “Games,” with the goal of educating “through engaging the user in an entertaining experience, or “Tools” which is tasked with the goal of empowering users to “access, visualize, sort, mash, track, or otherwise better understand data in ways that will inform user behavior.”
All submissions must incorporate at least one of the following nutrition and health concepts, either independently or in combination: teaching kids to eat more whole grain, increasing fruit and vegetable consumption, focusing on consuming more low- or non-fat milk, choosing lean sources of protein (such as meat and beans), making food group education fun, understanding calories and energy balance, increasing choices of foods with high nutrition value and decreasing amounts of foods with solid (saturated) fats and added sugars (i.e., “extra” calories), and decreasing amounts of sodium, identifying and consuming proper food portion sizes, being more physically active, and balancing physical activity and food intake.
The submission period began on March 10 and will end on June 30 at 5pm EDT. Judging will begin on July 14. All submissions will initially be screened by a qualified internal USDA panel, which will select the top submissions based on the following criteria: potential impact on target audience; quality, accuracy, and content of message; creativity and originality; potential for further development and use; and potential to engage and motivate target audience.
Those apps making it past the USDA panel will move on to be evaluated by a panel of expert judges that includes: Aneesh Chopra, the US chief technology officer for the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy; Mark DeLoura, videogame technology consultant and vice chair of International Game Developers Association; Mike Gallagher, president and CEO, Entertainment Software Association; Robin Hunicke, game designer and producer from thatgamecompany; Eric Johnston, senior software engineer at LucasArts; David Lazarus, senior advisor to the secretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture; Michael Levine, executive director of The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop; Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga Game Network, Inc.; and Steve Wozniak the co-founder of Apple Computer, Inc.
In addition, there will also be Popular Choice Winners, which will be determined by public vote on the Healthy Apps for Kids website during a public voting period.
The judging period is expected to conclude on August 14. Following the announcement of the awards (the date is still to be determined), winners will be honored at a White House event in Washington, D.C.
Software designers will compete for $40,000 in cash prizes. The grand prize winners in both the Games and Tools categories will receive $10,000. A runner up (only in the game category) will receive $4,500. Honorable mention winners from both categories will earn $1000. In addition, a Popular Choice winner from each category will receive $4500.
The Apps for Healthy Kids challenge is a collaborative initiative of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services and the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion.
For more information about Apps for Healthy Kids, log on to www.appsforhealthykids.com.