By Rick Morgin
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August 1, 2023
August is Back-to-School month for most American families with school-aged children. When parents are focused on gathering supplies and clothes to prepare their kids for success, thoughts about their child’s nutrition might include a new lunchbox, but often not much more. Parents are doing their best, and we are right there with them. However, we declare that equipping kids with a quality, basic nutrition education and getting them excited about making better food choices may be the best way to prepare them for long-term success in school and in life. Introducing Kids Food Fight! By providing entertaining education on basic nutrition via a family game, Kids Food Fight empowers and inspires kids to make their own healthier food choices every day. The rising epidemic of childhood obesity and its devastating health consequences led clinical nutritionist Melanie Sliwka and wellness coach Kate Loftus to create Kids Food Fight. This is especially timely, as the American Academy of Pediatrics’ newly-released and controversial guidelines for treating obese children and adolescents advise weight loss drugs for children as young as 8 and bariatric surgery for children beginning at age 12.* Melanie thought up KFF after enjoying success with her adult nutrition program, Six Weeks to Cleaner Eating. Many parents who completed that program asked her to create something for their kids. It’s hard to convince kids to eat well. Honestly, until adults change the way that they're treating nutrition in their own homes, their kids will never change. Our kids are literally the victims of how we eat. This means if you have junk food, sugary cereal, and juice in your home, then your child will eat it. Parents need to do the work first or alongside their kids to be successful in good nutrition. After Melanie created the curriculum, she invited fellow mom Kate to join her with the parent perspective. For the past year and a half, we have built Kids Food Fight into the premier nutrition education program for kids. Our mission is to gamify food education and empower kids to make their own healthier food choices. Via daily food dares, weekly food experiments, recipe contests, an Unusual Produce BINGO card, and plenty of camaraderie, Kids Food Fight delivers simple daily nutrition insights for families. When so many food options are available worldwide, we help children understand food choices and make one smarter choice at a time. Kids Food Fight is a game played online over 28 days. Kids can earn 2 to 5 points each day by completing small tasks like eating a fruit or vegetable or playing ball outside for 20 minutes. Each week focuses on a different meal. There are 100 points possible. Kids who earn 86 or more points get a spot in our Hero Hall of Fame. The real magic is revealed in the Daily Missions. Players follow along the comic story of two kids, Giro and Fendi, as they go through their days fending off junky Immobilizers like DoughNOT and Pizzilla. Fortunately, our Healthy Heroes swoop in and help our kids make smarter food choices. We're excited to develop the game into an app, and we're actively seeking funding. We are also looking for ideas and donations of enticing awards that we can offer to really get kids excited to play and stick with it. Presently, the age range for our players is approximately 6 to 13 years old, and the kids in the KFF comic are in 4th grade. We look forward to further developing our comic and curriculum to appeal to middle schoolers, high schoolers, and even college freshmen, to continue their nutrition knowledge and empowerment. We run group games three times a year and privately. It is offered through private schools and afterschool programs. A few teachers have taken it into their classrooms. We aren’t operating in public schools at this time, but we would love to get there. The cost is $149 to join one 28-day game, or $249 for 3 games in a year. We also offer scholarships. If any kid wants to play and they can't afford it, we will scholarship them in. We want every kid who wants to play Kids Food Fight to play! Along with the macronutrients and how sugar affects the body, we teach portion sizes and why it's important to eat them together. We introduce them to food advertising and reading food labels. We also encourage movement to get kids outside and away from screens and devices. Kids are aware of their own bodies. Returning to school after the pandemic, they know if they are bigger than they used to be. Facing their peers was very uncomfortable for many. That’s another reason why this work is so important. We will follow our comic story kids as they go through middle school and… puberty! How do different foods affect you when you're going through puberty and how does that make you feel? KFF connects the dots for kids about how what they eat translates into how they feel about themselves and how they physically feel later. Our comic kids will go through high school and even get into college; there's still that freshman 15 (the average weight gain in pounds for new college students). Presently we have families from every time zone except for Hawaii and Alaska who have played our game. We look forward to sharing it worldwide via our game as an app. The program is simple and easily translated into multiple languages. We already have plans for Spanish, Mandarin, and German and interest from six countries around the world. We are excited to train people to be KFF facilitators. They will have access to our curriculum and game platforms and be able to run games whenever they like. Consider your baseball teams, soccer teams, Girl and Boy Scout troops, martial arts studios, dance, and gymnastics studios. If you know a group of kids and you care about their health and wellness, we invite you to become a KFF facilitator and potentially a future franchise owner. Melanie and Kate would like to thank Rick Morgin for the opportunity to share our mission with this successful audience. Rick, we are grateful for your guidance as we look into franchising in the future. Our next official 28-day game starts on October 1st. To learn more, visit our website, www.kidsfoodfight.com , or email us directly at info@kidsfoodfight.com . We welcome potential business partners, too. Information on the Six Weeks to Cleaner Eating adult program can be found at www.medmel.com. Here is what Nicole Berschback, dietitian, and author of Total Potential, says about KFF: "As a dietitian, I've always been conscious of my children's food choices and engaged in family meals, cooking, and food play. The real advantage to the Kids Food Fight was that it put my kids in charge, not me. They loved trying new foods to earn game points and to try to win BINGO. We laughed and wondered during food experiments. They learned about the building blocks of nutrition in age-appropriate and fun ways. Since doing the program, we have regularly included many new fruits and veggies into our diet. The program was a big win for our family!" Please play with us this October! We’re happy to see you then! ~ Melanie & Kate About the Author Rick Morgin is a Consultant with The Franchise Consulting Company and alumnus of Santa Clara University. We assist clients with the educational process of researching and selecting available franchise businesses that best suit desired lifestyles and financial goals. The research, qualification, and application service we provide is free; our fees are paid by the Franchise company when a client opens their business. Contact Rick at rick@thefranchiseconsultingcompany.com .