There’s a great effort going on around the country through which kids are being educated about healthy eating and the scourge of obesity. It’s happening in urban settings and the educators are rap artists. The non-profit responsible is Hip Hop Public Health. I am guessing that when Easy A.D. or Doug E. Fresh go into a charter school and do a little PPT and a song about calories, salt and high fructose corn syrup, it is fairly well received. Perhaps even acted upon. But when the same songs are performed at lower income public schools, ah, not so much.
Spitting and rhyming better-for-you eating advice smells like school. And what word rhymes with polyunsaturated anyway? I love the intent, don’t get me wrong, but as we say there is showing and telling and this program seems a little heavy on the telling. If Doug E. Fresh did a set while eating some grapes – now that would make a difference. There is a fine line here and I’m glad we are beginning to cross it but good marketers know there is claim and there is deed. It’s not enough to say veggies are cool. Heroes need to eat them. For real. Not for show. Kids have school-dar. Radar about teaching.
I love this program and it will work. But for it to work with a big whoosh, it needs more deeds and a side of rhymes. Peace.