Apps For Healthy Kids — Where PC Meets PCs

theodp writes "Put the Grand Theft Auto, Halo, and Madden away, kids! Over at Apps for Healthy Kids, First Lady Michelle Obama has a whole new slate of games for you to play with! Voting on entries in the White House-backed game development competition has begun, and you'll find exciting titles like Balanced Meal (6 votes), Blubber Blaster (9 votes), Calorie Quest (10 votes), and Count Peas (7 votes) — and that's just for starters."

Comments

Surely the healthiest option

[Finallyjoined!!!]

Would be to not let "Kids" near a PC.

Re:Surely the healthiest option

[Anonymous Coward]

While you're at it, be sure to slap books out of their hands.

Anyhow, I'm just curious. Has anyone run the numbers on increasing kid-lard versus decreasing safe roaming distance around the home?

(Disclaimers: I read books, and grew up in an city-sized 60s suburb that was entirely safe to let kids roam.)

Re:Surely the healthiest option

[BlkRb0t]

That's not possible in the current scenario, PC's are everywhere and kids are going to see them and be curious about them. It's better that you teach them how to use it properly than making it a restriction. If you don't let them near one then they are going to seek it out from outside which maybe worse than what you intended to do.

Re:Surely the healthiest option

[dogsbreath]

Hmmm, I grew up in the 50s and we roamed the neighborhood in relative safety, but there were also lots of parents around. Two income families were not the norm. My wife or I would take our kids (now teens) to the playground and we would be the only parents in the area.

There have been a number of significant changes in the way people spend their time and how they interact in the last 50 years. Entertainment content has changed as well. It is simplistic (but fun!!) to blame one thing or another for obesity and violence.

So here's my 2c: Up to grade 5 or 6, turn off the TV and limit computer time. Go outside and play with your kids. Talk WITH them for a significant part of every day, even if you have something more important to do.

Especially limit exposure to shows/games that use a lot of sarcasm or display/infer violence. Your kid isn't going to be a serial killer because they play violent games but they do model what they see and if you want them to learn how to interact successfully with others then make sure they see / hear / live in way that is what you consider healthy.

Re:Surely the healthiest option

[nu1x]

> Especially limit exposure to shows/games that use a lot of sarcasm or display/infer violence. Your kid isn't going to be a serial killer because they play violent games but they do model what they see and if you want them to learn how to interact successfully with others then make sure they see / hear / live in way that is what you consider healthy.

Not really, regarding modeling. Many (most ?) kids are capable of differentiating between modeling the internal vs. the external world, as in, they can take all the sarcasm, blood and gore, and still understand the "abstraction" part behind it. I spent a lot of time around certain kids growing up, and while they were certainly above the norm intellectually, by the age of about 12, every abstract thing you throw at them they can take just dandy.

What is much more dangerous, is not having the valve for gore and brutality - you may think it strange, but it is necessary. I've seen kids ruined by over-protective parents. In other words, I've noticed that true demons among kids are those who have not noticed pain and suffering in the world, and esp. those who have not felt pain and personal loss - not saying that you should traumatize your kids, far from it - what I am getting at is that kids need to go outside, for example, take a camping trip - and not experience comfort for once - but the mud, the hunger and hardship - these are the things that make kids appreciate it in others and become more helpful.

Also, boys (maybe I am coming off as sexist here, whatever) tend to naturally seek out sources of pain in real life while playing. But it is healthy - broad spectrum of experience defines us as persons.

Not sheltering them or making them "model" some behaviour on rote level, but rather, leading them to understand root causes and relationships of this world, is a better approach.

World-proof your kids.

Re:Surely the healthiest option

[Chowderbags]

Talk WITH them for a significant part of every day, even if you have something more important to do.

They're your kids. Raising them is the most important thing you have to do.

Re:Surely the healthiest option

[mcgrew]

Even though I wasn't around in the 50's, the world that my parents describe growing up in was a much safer place.

I was around in the '50s (born in 1952), and I assure you the world is far safer today. Take automobiles -- the cars back then had drum brakes, rather than antilock disk brakes. There were no seat belts, let alone air bags. The autos' dashes were steel, the cars had no crumple zones.

There were no bicycle helmets; a kid that lived around the block from me died froim a head injury after wrecking his bicycle.

The media is to blame, making it LOOK like it was safer. From the newspapers you'd think there's a child molester on every street corner waiting for some unwary parent to tke his/her eyes of the child, but the fact is most molestations are from family members, friends, or clergy. It's just that they were hushed up back then; a family around the block from me in the late 50s/early 60s had two children that were molested by their own fathers.

The same goes for child abductions. In this case there are more, but again, the reason is that there were few divorces compared to today. Most abductions are the child's own parent who loses custody kidnapping the kid; there is virtually no chance of your child being abducted by a stranger.

There were criminals, but society didn't just give them a slap on the wrist when they were found.

Absolute bullshit. Penalties have gotten more and more harsh as time has gone by. There were no "three strikes laws" or sex offender registries back then.

As you have pointed out, there was always somebody there who knew who should and should not be around.

Nope. Incorrect, wrong. We'd get on our bicycles and be gone all day. A dozen of us would play baseball in the vacant field all afternoon without being bothered or hassled by a single adult, and IMO it was good for us.

Another factor that I think is important and have seen take a sharp decline even in my lifetime is the general morality.

What appears to be a decline in morality is actually a decline in hypocracy. Now as then, most people were good, honest folks, but there have always been thieves, adulterors, and the like. The difference is that the antisocial thieves who ran corporations were a bit more discrete in their antisocial theivery. Now they revel in it and rub our noses in it, and it's seen as normal.

These days, I would be more concerned of the other children and the influences of society than the actual criminals.

That hasn't changed a bit. There were always bad parents with bad kids, although with most kids now being raised by babysitters and in child care centers, there are more bad kids, because they're not getting the love they need.

Another big factor is that spanking is now seen as abuse. Today's spoiled brats could use a few good swats.

Re:Just feed them less

[AigariusDebian]

There is a certain problem with 'get out and play' if your outside is a ghetto ridden with gangs, drug dealers and gun violence. Better to stay inside then.

Re:Just feed them less

[FourthAge]

Backwards? But it isn't just about the exercise. It's also about social skills. Keep them "safely" indoors all day and, well, you know what happens... you'll have met kids like this in forums and online games. They are not pleasant to be with; they are rude, selfish people, and it's because they are poorly socialised. Some of them are technically adults - they are the saddest examples. We can get used to ignoring the flames, the trolls and the gamer rage on the Internet, but imagine how such people cope in the real world. "Not very well" is the answer.

Keep it up!

[pieisgood]

No seriously, good job. You're sure to reel in the fatties with titles like "blubber blaster". I'm sure the most popular game is going to be something like "Lardass Limbo" and "Stop eating so much fatty". With titles like that, I'm sure the kids will start playing them by the droves. /sarcasm

Do they think kids are that stupid?

Re:Keep it up!

[AnonymousClown]

They're not marketing them to the kids: they're marketing them to the parents. The parents will buy "Blubber Blaster" and "encourage" their kids to use it. Of course, it'll probably stay on the shelf but the parents will feel good that they "did" something - kind of like the folks who buy the exercise equipment, use it once or twice, and give up.

In the meantime, the parents still buy the kids Coke, potato chips, crap from fast food joints (if it has a takeout window, it's crap), and they watch their parents sit in front of the TV all night.

I saw this guy buy his little pudgeball one of those 20oz Cokes the other day. She was 8 years old and already a fatty.

Re:What the hell???!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, give peas a chance!

Oxymoron inside

[nu1x]

Why oh why would healthy kids require games such as blubber blaster ?

They should be called apps for big boned, sensitive kids.

And now what ? You're trying to blast their blubber away ? Seems like recipe for insecurity ... :/

Better to create a game called "Life Challenged" wherein the object is to increase the worth of society by stopping being an oxygen thief - and there's only one way to do that. Achievement points for creative solutions ! :P

Or instead...

[betterunixthanunix]

On the one hand, we can continue to encourage kids to play video games and be antisocial, and hope that games with anti-fast-food themes will out-compete games like Halo. On the other hand, we can encourage kids to not play video games, and spend their time outdoors socializing and engaging in physical activity with each other, and hope that such activity will out-compete video games. Gee, which plan is going to be more effective (not that either one will be enormously effective)?

Of course, if we devote as much effort to telling kids that hang out with each other and play outdoors as we do to telling them that there is something wrong with enjoying the effects of drugs, we will hurt the profits of the corporations that produce video games. Since "the business of the United States is business," any plan that involves hurting corporate profits is a plan that will never actually happen.

Winning Concept

[crow_t_robot]

If you want to make a game to encourage kids to be healthy, make a really shitty game like the orginal E.T. for Atari. Kids will play it for about 2 minutes before turning it off and going outside to make a tree-house.
In my opinion, making a good game and encouraging physical fitness and healthy eating are mutually-exclusive activities. I can tell when I have bought a really good game by the amount of time I have been stuck in the house glued to the game and all the garbage food I eat while playing it because I'm too busy to get up and prepare a healthy meal.