Pepsi tackles childhood obesity with videogames in Mexico

Guardian Unlimites ^ | 1/2/2008 | Jo Tuckman

[redrunner]

In a country, where 80% of schools lack access to drinking water, Pepsi challenges students to stave off obesity while selling them soft drinks. Every day small armies of street vendors gather outside the gates of Mexico's schools to tempt the nation's children. "I don't like drinks without flavour," Raul explained one recent afternoon as he succumbed to the siren's call of a bright red fizzy drink. "I don't know anybody who does." Mexicans down more soft drinks than any other nationality in the world, aside from Americans, and even their traditional diet is filled with fried food and sugar. Combine that with new sedentary urban lifestyles and you have a country that over the past decade has established itself as among the fattest in the world. ... "We don't want to be seen as the guilty ones. We want to be seen as part of the solution." ... 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. Periodic visits to the doctor provide health checks. "It's great," Cesar shouted above the din of digital yeehahs, boings, burps and jingles as his class wallowed in their weekly session. "It teaches you what you should eat." The 10-year old's ample frame spilling over his chair belied his claim that he already eats mostly fruit and vegetables and drinks only water, but he was certainly having fun. The conversation was cut short when his nutrin began demanding attention: "I'm hungry," it said.

[redrunner]

"We don't want to be seen as the guilty ones. We want to be seen as part of the solution."

[Hyzenthlay]

Video games like DDR would do far more to combat obesity - it’s seriously a really good workout.

[El Gato]

Pepsi is also one of the largest producers of bottled water. The brother of one of our exchange students has gone from hot headed teenager to responsible father and some sort of manager at one of their facilities on the Yucatan.