One of my most vivid grade school memories is the sound the meatloaf made when it landed on the plates in the hot lunch line. Ick.
Needless to say, my experiences with school lunches were not participatory. (Unless you count finding ways make the nuns think that you had eaten your food, which I don’t). The overall theme of LoveLunchCommunity was definitely participation. Through their participation in the growing, nurturing, harvesting, preparing and eating of food, they engaged all five of their senses.
In The Whole World in a Small Seed, Rivka Mason gets directly to the heart of engagement and the participatory experience. “If you say something, it goes in one ear and other the other. If you read to (children) they may take in a bit. But if they can actually get in their bodies, in their hands and in their senses, they absorb it.” Of course, she’s not talking about media, but the principle still applies.
In Flaming Hot, viewers get to watch the fat drip out of a flaming Cheetos. I was engaged enough to post it on the Cheeto’s Facebook page. (I wonder how long it will stay there?) Who doesn’t love setting things on fire in science class? Beth Sonnenberg was under no illusions about whether the demonstration would prompt kids to stop eating Cheeto’s. “I don’t think they’re making better choices, but they’re making informed choices. They’re eating the same things, but at least they’re aware of what they’re eating.”
This is a classic example of excess parallel process model communication theory. According to Timothy Edgar and Julie Volkman (2012), unless people find the health risk unpleasant and/or serious, they will not change their behavior. A fat-dripping Cheeto probably doesn’t pose a serious health risk in the minds of teenagers.
I was most impressed with If They Cook It, They Will Eat It. Not only was it engaging from the standpoint of watching children enjoy healthy food, it was inspiring to see how involved and enthusiastic Kathy Russell and Brenna Ritch were. I love this quote in particular, “I really love that I am giving a child a voice to be an advocate for their own health. That they’re going to really learn to make those decisions and be an advocate for themselves with food and know that health can come from food and not a pill or a parent’s advice or a doctor or an emergency room.”
The site is very thought provoking and spreadable. Great messages about the importance of engagement and participation.
FYI: Flamin Hot lasted on the Cheeto’s page only as long as it took me to write three paragraphs.
I agree, I too was really impressed with the video If They Cook It, They Will Eat It. I also liked how they offered cooking classes to the parents in the evening. What a great way to keep the kids interested in eating healthy by educating and engaging their parents too.
I was thinking about that Cheeto’s burning at the stake and I thought that if they wanted to emphasize how much useless fat there is in a Cheeto, they could have driven the point home more by burning one or two more food items that are healthier to eat, maybe a carrot stick or a multi-grain chip, so the students can really see the difference. A minor point.
I guess my bigger point is that it takes a lot of creativity and out-of-box thinking to do even the smaller tasks in a project like Lunch Love. You’re not just battling against bad food per se. You’re taking on a whole system’s entrenched attitude of indifference and casualness about the bigger picture.
I agree Grace! I think you’re battling who gets to tell whom what to do. The school didn’t really want to listen to the parents at first. The people who ran the lunch room didn’t want to be told they were doing their budgeting and planning all wrong. People don’t see the casuals players on the outside of their organizations and institutions as people with expertise or informed points of view so they disregard them and continue doing what has supposedly worked for years, but ultimately ends up killing kids.
I think I was similarly affected by the by the burning Cheeto. I remember eating those things as little as two years ago. I knew they were bad for me, but not THAT bad. Now after seeing that video I don;t think I’ll eat them ever again. I know anyone who I shared it with probably wouldn’t either. That is why these videos being so spreadable is awesome.
I think Melissa deserves some special kudos for pulling in the extended parallel process model from our Strat Comm reading.
While I understand the teacher had no illusions that Cheeto-burning would change behavior, I agree with Grace that setting up some sort of comparison with healthy food might have left a deeper impression with the kids. But by having them perform a hands-on experiment, the teacher was able to engage the students in a way a nutrition lecture can’t.
Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if the students told their friends about that “crazy class experiment” where they set fire to Cheetos, thereby spreading the health message beyond just one class.
Melissa- I love how you immediately jumped to the experience of school lunches, which is often visceral in a negative way. One of the aspects of the LLC videos I appreciated was that they don’t shy away from confronting the typical experiences folks have with lunch food (which is why I think positioning the word “Love” next to “Lunch” in the title is striking and effective). These felt experiences are engaging – we often can’t help but cringe at the thought of our own memories of school lunches – while the term ‘school lunch’ alone typically calls to mind an industrial, impersonal program where students’ only participation consists of filing through in assembly-line fashion. Demonstrating how we can reconstruct that deeply human ritual of eating as a health experience is a powerful way to convey meaning.
I think LLC’s mission and means of engagement via social media and open space documentaries are effective because offering a path to take ownership and responsibility for a program that we’re all familiar with, and which has so much room for improvement, is an empowering opportunity. LLC is fortunate to have as its subject something so personal as food, because we all identify with school lunches, and so videos and social media are not merely convenient avenues by which to reach new audiences but also offer audiences a way to collectively identify with the content presented by sharing it among themselves- like a common memory. Plus, these networks can serve as a map of the teams and communication channels necessary to develop and enact better food policies in schools.
The closing note about the short lifespan of Flamin Hot on the Cheeto’s page adds a touch of humor to your overall positive and insightful comment. Well done!