Health IT, Startups

Kurbo raises $5.8M to support launch of app to reduce childhood obesity

With about one third of children and adolescents considered to be either overweight or obese, […]

With about one third of children and adolescents considered to be either overweight or obese, a lot of households are grappling with the issue of how to motivate their kids to lose weight, aside from saying “no” all the time. If counting calories and losing weight are tough for an adult, just think how difficult the daily challenge of childhood obesity is for kids. Joanna Strober, frustrated with the limited options she saw beyond expensive counseling programs and daily confrontations with her son, created a mobile health startup to help address the problem called Kurbo Health.

The Rock Health accelerator member launched its app this week, supported by a $5.8 million Series A round, according to a company statement.

The app is based on the Stanford University Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital pediatric obesity program. It steers away from calories and instead uses traffic light colors to guide children so they make smart food choices. Green foods are fruit and vegetables, which are encouraged, and yellow foods are whole grain breads, dairy products and lean meats, which should be eaten in  moderation. Then there are red foods, which tend to be fried or sugary and are high in fat and should also be moderated. The food tracker helps users and their parents see how many of each category they have consumed and shows what their food color allowance is for the rest of the week based on what they have consumed so far. New goals can be set each week.

Other components include virtual feedback and suggestions based on the foods tracked. Users can also receive live coaching by phone, video and text, to get feedback and encouragement.

The idea is to make it feel less like a diet and more like a game. And it’s not exactly a challenge to get kids to use smartphones. There’s plenty of interaction but there are also games to reinforce healthy diet and exercise habits.

A pilot program conducted earlier this year for children aged 8 to 18 around the U.S. claimed an 85 percent success rate in reducing their Body Mass Index in a 10 week time frame.

Signia Venture Partners led the funding round, and other participating investors included  Data Collective, Bessemer Venture Partners and Promus Ventures, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, and Greg Badros, a former Facebook vice president of engineering and product.

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