7.2: Innovations for Health (Healthy Kids Challenge)

Partner with the Food and Nutrition Service to administer the Let’s Move! campaign’s Apps for Healthy Kids, working closely with the White House Office of Science Technology and Policy (OSTP), and the USDA Office of Communications (OC) and the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS).

Other Information:

The Apps for Healthy Kids competition, launched on March 10, 2010, is part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign to end childhood obesity within a generation. Apps for Healthy Kids challenges software developers, game designers, students, and other innovators to develop fun and engaging software tools and games that drive children to eat better and be more physically active. The USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) partnered with the Food and Nutrition Service to administer the Let’s Move! campaign’s Apps for Healthy Kids, working closely with the White House Office of Science Technology and Policy (OSTP), and the USDA Office of Communications (OC) and the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). A third party company, ChallengePost, under contract to CNPP, runs the Apps for Healthy Kids website. The Apps for Healthy Kids competition is part of a larger, three-part initiative – Innovations for Healthy Kids. Videos for Healthy Kids and Recipes for Healthy Kids (working titles) are follow-on projects that will solicit PSA-type videos that motivate healthy eating, and school food service recipes that emphasize healthier foods, respectively. Both of these projects are still in conceptual phases. The Video competition will be a CNPP project; the Recipes competition will be administered by CNPP’s sister agency, FNS. These projects are tentatively scheduled to begin in late 2010 or early 2011, in unison with the consumer launch of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Background Through the Open Government Initiative, the U.S. Government recently made available a rich variety of Federal datasets via Data.gov with the purpose of increasing public access to high value, machine-readable datasets. In mid-November 2009, the White House OSTP contacted CNPP to launch a series of “crowdsourcing” competitions, the first of which uses a CNPP MyPyramid dataset. This dataset, highlighted on Data.gov during its launch in early December 2009, provides information on total calories, calories from “extras” (solid fats, added sugars, and alcohol), and MyPyramid food groups for over 1,000 commonly eaten foods. With these critical components, the Apps for Healthy Kids competition was born. Development CNPP worked with the White House OSTP and USDA’s OC and FNS to design the competition – prizes, judges, rules, timeline, etc. (This information is available at www.AppsforHealthyKids.com.) With the target of reducing the public health problem posed by the epidemic of childhood obesity, the broad goal of the Apps for Healthy Kids competition is to motivate the public to create innovative, fun, and engaging tools and games that encourage children – directly or through their parents – to make more nutritious food choices and to be more physically active. Submissions must use the USDA nutrition dataset and may be any kind of software tool or game - for the web, a personal computer, a mobile handheld device, or any software platform broadly available to the public. Apps and games must be built around educational messages that emphasize one or more key nutrition concepts from the government's principal sources of nutrition guidance and education (Dietary Guidelines for Americans and MyPyramid). To inform the development of the competition, the OSTP and USDA’s CNPP sought input from 31 experts who offered their knowledge and experience related to game design, entertainment technology, social media, and skill contests at a workshop held at the White House Conference Center in February 2010. Experts included representatives from the following government and non-government groups/organizations: White House Office of Science & Technology Policy; White House Domestic Policy Council; USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, USDA Food and Nutrition Services, Office of Information Technology; USDA Office of Communications; Digitalmill; Intel Foundation; Zynga Game Network (creator of FarmVille); International Game Developers Association; Entertainment Software Association; E-Line Media; Global Game Jam; Carnegie Mellon University School of Design; Carnegie Melon Entertainment Technology Center; Southern Methodist University Guildhall Program; Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; Games for Change, Technology Center, The Georgia Institute of Technology; Hot Frog Creative; Physic Ventures; New Wave Entertainment; The Studio @ New Wave Entertainment; University of California - Santa Barbara; Disney Online Kerpoof Studios; 1st Playable Productions; Beyond the Box Productions; University of Southern California Games Institute; HopeLab; Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop; and the MacArthur Foundation. The OSTP sought additional input from the public through blog posts. The OSTP and USDA’s CNPP gathered an expert panel of judges. It will score submissions and select winners. The panel includes: Aneesh Chopra (U.S. Chief Technology Officer, White House Office of Science & Technology Policy), Mark DeLoura (Videogame Technology Consultant and Vice Chair, International Game Developers Association), Mike Gallagher (President and CEO, Entertainment Software Association), Robin Hunicke (Game Designer and Producer, thatgamecompany), Eric Johnston (Senior Software Engineer, LucasArts), David Lazarus (Senior Advisor to the Secretary, U.S. Department of Agriculture), Michael Levine (Executive Director, The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop), Mark Pincus (CEO, Zynga Game Network, Inc.), and Steve Wozniak (Co-founder, Apple Computer, Inc.). There will also be a public voting winner. Prizes include cash awards and a reception at the White House in September 2010. Shortly before USDA was to launch the competition, the Office of the First Lady contacted CNPP. The Apps for Healthy Kids competition was officially adopted as part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign. The competition and its website were launched by the First Lady on March 10 at the National PTA (Parent Teacher Association) conference in Washington, DC. Information Required for Flagship Initiative An important and rich dataset used by USDA for its MyPyramid tools is now available for entrepreneurs to use their skills and creativity for help solve a very serious public health problem. The design and structure of the Apps for Healthy Kids competition addresses each of the three principles of President Obama’s call for a transparent and open government: participation, collaboration, and transparency. The competition calls for Americans who have design and programming skills to participate with the Federal government in solving the problem of childhood obesity. This public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. The White House and USDA are using their strengths to collaborate with experts in the gaming and technology industry, the nutrition and education fields, universities, etc., to achieve this overall goal. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Lastly, from start to finish, the Apps for Healthy Kids competition has been executed transparently through active participation in its development and by gathering feedback from the public and experts in related fields, as this promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is going. The Apps for Healthy Kids competition engages the public and interested parties through the Apps for Healthy Kids website, exposure at professional meetings and conferences, and blogs and other online social media venues (Facebook, Twitter). The Apps for Healthy Kids competition has achieved significant reach, particularly online where a Google search of the term “apps for healthy kids” just 2 weeks after the launch resulted in an impressive 138,000 active web links. For more information about USDA’s MyPyramid Food Guidance System, a network of science-based, consumer tested, web-based, interactive and personalized nutrition guidance tools, and the Apps for Healthy Kids competition, please contact: Dr. Robert Post, Deputy Director, Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, USDA, 703-305-7600. Chefs and Schools Healthier US Recipe Challenge In conjunction with Innovations for Health and as follow-on to Healthy Kids Challenge, the Chefs and Schools Healthier US Recipe Challenge will build on the existing groundwork and embody the core values of open government. Background Kids eat too few dark green and orange vegetables, legumes, and whole grains and schools are looking for ways to incorporate these foods into school lunch menus in a manner that won’t result in a student uprising or drop in school lunch participation. The Solution A national recipe challenge that brings together food service staff, chefs and students to develop nutritious, delicious and kid-approved foods that schools can easily incorporate into National School Lunch Program menus, bringing them one step closer to becoming a HealthierUS School Challenge Award winner. Why a Recipe Contest The Challenge will produce recipes schools can use to implement new meal pattern requirements recommended by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which include specific requirements for increasing the offerings of dark green and orange vegetables, dry beans and peas, and whole grains. A recipe contest provides schools with the flexibility to incorporate these “hard-to-sell” foods into their menus right away, allowing for their application under a number of menu planning approaches and giving consideration to regional and cultural food preferences. This approach focuses innovation and creativity on under-consumed foods and emphasizes the issues of acceptability, palatability and appeal of foods that, while they may look good on menus, often fail to be actually chosen and eaten by children when placed on the serving line. The sharper focus of a recipe contest avoids the issues of having to explain details of meal pattern requirements to contestants, applicability of menus developed under soon-to-be-outdated or yet-to-be-implemented meal pattern requirements, and complexity of judging a challenge that would involve criteria for both menus and related recipes. Following the recipe contest, FNS could invite schools to share how they have incorporated the winning recipes in their menus—thereby showcasing how the recipes are being used in different ways across the country. The Challenge Participants Recipes must be submitted by a team that includes a Chef, School Nutrition Professional (i.e., school foodservice staff), and student (5-18 years). This “team approach” supports the White House’s initiative to involve chefs in the movement to provide healthier food in schools. It also echoes the philosophy behind Team Nutrition and the HealthierUS School Challenge, which recognize that it takes a team to make changes to what kids eat in school. The relationships that are formed through the creation of recipes for this contest will ideally persist into other areas of the school menu and result in best practices on how chefs and schools can work together. On the recipe team, the chef would provide culinary expertise and ingenuity; the School Nutrition Professional would provide program expertise and an understanding of what can be realistically implemented in the school setting; and the student would ensure that the contest is kid-centric and results in foods that are appealing to youth. Recipe Categories and Awards First and second place awards and honorable mentions will be given to the best lunch recipes in the following categories: Whole Grains, Dark Green/Orange Vegetables, and Dry Beans and Peas (Legumes). Additional Recipe Criteria Recipes must utilize nationally available ingredients and include no more than 15 ingredients. Bonus points will be given to recipes utilizing USDA foods. Recipes must be taste-tested in an elementary or secondary school participating in the National School Lunch Program. School Nutrition Professional on the team must work with a National School Lunch Program Recipes must be consistent with the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and meet criteria for total fat, saturated fat, trans-fat, sugar and sodium. Servings of whole grains, dark green/orange vegetables and dry beans and peas must be consistent with HealthierUS School Challenge criteria.

Stakeholder(s):

• USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP)

Indicator(s):

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