Health IT, Startups

Startup wants to fix nutrition communication gap between MDs, parents, children

A Carnegie Mellon University startup wants to make it easier for physicians to talk about preventing and reducing obesity with children and their families. It wants to make these conversations less challenging, confrontational and defensive.

A Carnegie Mellon University startup wants to make it easier for physicians to talk about  preventing and reducing obesity with children and their families. It wants to make these conversations less challenging, confrontational and defensive.

The public health program by Fitwits uses a mix of goofy cartoon character role models (Elvis Pretzley, anyone?), gaming and multimedia presentations to improve health literacy to encourage healthy choices among elementary school students and their families. For example, for every Fitwit role model there seems to be an antithetical Nitwit character making bad nutritional choices.

Fitwits is part of the university’s ‘For-Profit’ technology transfer program. Its Fitwits is the product of a five-year research project by Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design, according to the company’s website. It was developed in collaboration with University of Pittsburgh Medical Center St. Margaret’s Family Health Centers in the wake of some pretty stark stats.

In the U.S., obese children aged 6 to 11 years old rose from 7 percent in 1980 to 18 percent in 2012, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Although there’s a strong emphasis on portion size, improving nutrition literacy for kids and adults is also a big part of it.

The program is currently part of a national trial with a health insurer, which could be Highmark. Two executive appointments, in addition to being graduates of Carnegie-Mellon’s business school, were also members of the Highmark Health Services leadership team. Alistair Rock will serve as CEO and Adam Jenkins will act as head of finance, innovation and strategic planning.

The program is aimed at 9- to 12-year-olds and is designed for three settings: elementary schools, doctors offices and families.

A gaming component is designed to be played by parents and their children. A multimedia program is led by teachers, and physicians use flashcards to test children on what they’ve learned.

In addition to making it easier for physicians, the program sets out to encourage behavior change at an early age and make a lasting impact.

The size of the challenge — making parents more aware of their children’s and their own nutritional needs–  illustrated by the sheer number of startups and volume of research around this issue. It will be interesting to evaluate the health of the students that participate in these programs in a few years time to see if it has a lasting impact.

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