Get your kids to eat healthy with a few clicks

Relaxnews
Tuesday 17 August 2010 00:00 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

US First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! initiative to get children healthy sparked a smartphone applications competition for healthy apps and games to educate kids and parents about nutrition, importance of physical activity, calorie information and healthy balanced menu-planning.

On August 14, a panel judged the applications after a public vote; the winners are to be announced in September but until then, you may want to take a look at the 80+ apps and play a few online with your kids.

Here are a few explained:

Pop Food an iPhone/iPod touch/iPad game that helps kids learn how to spell different foods, their health benefits and food groups. http://www.keeness.net/popfood/index.htm

STAVO: Food Flight OS an Xbox game where the player needs to send the alien Zheekei home by feeding it healthy foods (the alien eats a nutritionally balanced diet of a 9-13 year old child) that provides Zheekei enough fuel to pedal all the way back to his home planet Ayamilla. http://iam.colum.edu/students/Anthony.Sixto/StavoFoodFlightOS/StavoFoodFlightOS.html

Food Find an iPhone/iPod touch game played in a park or field tests your child's food group knowledge as they run and compete to 'pick up foods.' http://retronyms.com/foodfind/

Smash Your Food is a visual game that has children guessing how much sugar, salt and oil is in their favorite foods. After the guess is made, the food (slice of pizza, burger, chocolate muffin, sugary cereal, noodles) is smashed and oozes out a count of sugar, salt and oil to compare to the recommended amounts based on age and level of physical activity. http://www.foodnme.com/smash-your-food/

To access the full application gallery, visit: http://www.appsforhealthykids.com/application-gallery

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in