What kind of parent needs a child-like video game to teach them what to do?
Via CNS News:
The Department of Health and Human Services has awarded $747,891 for the development of a video game to train “vegetable parenting practices”.
A grant for “Kiddio: Food Fight – Training Vegetable Parenting Practices” was given to Archimage, Inc. of Houston to help fund the project from May of 2013 through the end of August 2014.
“The genre of games that we research and develop are called ‘Serious Video Games’”, Archimage President Richard Buday tells CNSNews.com. “It’s a game to teach to mothers of pre-school age kids how to get their children to eat vegetables.”
According to Buday, a major focus is to help fight childhood obesity. “One of the problems is that parents may want the kids to eat better – fruits and veggies – but lack the understanding of how to do that.”
“What we’re trying to do is get to parents – in a medium that they enjoy and look forward to receiving information through – but in a non-didactic way.”
The project’s grant description says that storied video games “offer goal setting for changing practices in the real world, and address common vegetable feeding problems (that) should produce improved food parenting skills.”