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Pepsi tackles childhood obesity with videogames in Mexico - Guardian Unlimited- Childhood Obesity News

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The company’s answer - called Live Healthily - aims to teach a million children in primary schools around the country that they should match the calories they consume with the calories they use up doing exercise. The centrepiece is a tamagotchi-like computer game in which a child called a nutrin must be guided through everyday decisions about what to buy, what to eat and what sports to play. The impact of the programme is to be evaluated by a serious scientific study organised by the National Pediatric Institute but Richard Daynard, a Northeastern University professor and anti-tobacco dignitary turned obesity campaigner, discounts significant success. It’s a tough challenge in Mexico where it is harder to buy a banana than a doughnut in many a jungle village, and where the urban poor often have easier and cheaper access to cola than to water. Last month the same opposition senators who voted down the soft drink tax introduced a bill to ban selling junk food inside schools, and the airwaves a filled by unusually direct government warnings that if you are overweight you have “a hefty health problem”. Read Childhood Obesity

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