ONE NICKEL VOLUNTARILY COLLECTED FOR EACH
FAST FOOD MEAL COULD RAISE BILLIONS AGAINST OBESITY!
The Nickel-a-Meal Campaign concept is very simple at its heart. It is a unique and straightforward approach that involves working with the food industry to have an extra nickel voluntarily added to the cost of unhealthy foods we order to make it possible for healthier options to be made available without giving up on the idea of fast, affordable and fun community food!
How do we do this? Buy using tactics similar to
(voluntarily) to buy and enjoy unhealthy fast foods.
There is a reason why we laugh when we hear
that a past scientific study showed that, given the
choice, 78% kids would prefer chocoate over
broccoli! Or at least they do until Seasome Street's
character Elmo is added to the packaging ... then
50% say they prefer the broccoli! (See page 28
Childhood Obesity, May 2010.)
Because commercialism has an impact! And it may
well be why too minority children born after the
year 2000 now have a 50% likelihood that they will develop Type 2 diabetes.
If each of us simply agrees to offer a nickel for each fast food purchase we make, we can literally get rid of this obesity epidemic all across the nation!
A FEW CENTS MAKES FOR A NICKEL CAMPAIGN!
Here are the basics of how a successful Nickel-a-Meal Campaign Against Obesity might work:
First: Have young people develop a great, fun and even animated
advertising and promotional campaign strategy based
on the idea that it's cool to pay just a nickel to make
our food better.
A logo, animated characters and creatures,
anti-obesity games (like Michelle Obama is
promoting already!), social networks, prizes,
incentives and ways to participate: all of these
can become recognized symbols of restaurants
and food businesses that care!
Second: We make it easy for all to be involved.
Just about everyone can afford a nickel. So all we
need to do is get the restaurants and even other food businesses to want to make it easy for us to be part of the solution.
How easy might it be if we get the cash register and credit/ATM card transaction systems that take the money from our accounts and add a nickel for this cause? The transaction fee will already be paid and the money can be monitored--though we can always allow someone to say no to the nickel and we can set the nickel donation on only certain meals, such as "value" or "super sized" orders that seem to be a big part of the problem.
Third: We have those nickels quickly and safetly transferred to local or regional charities who will use the money to support creative local food empowerment projects--projects that help get healthy food back into our diets, bring innovative ideas to our community, and that perhaps even reward customers and businesses that make these solutions work!
Imagine this: Five cents from a $200 billion a year industry (assuming we spend $4 per purchase) could result in about 110,000,000 nickels EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THE YEAR!
Now that's effective healthy food change we can all count on!
