FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:
Jackie Clark
(301) 987-7113
NEW BALANCED FOR LIFE
SCHOOL TREASURE HUNT GAME
NOW AVAILABLE ON BFL WEBSITE
Operators Download Campaign Materials from Web;
Students Answer Health and Fitness Questions to Win Prizes
CHICAGO, IL – May 1, 2006 – A special Balanced for Life Trivia Treasure Hunt game that National Automatic Merchandise Association (NAMA) operators can download and offer to their school accounts is now available at www.balancedforlife.net, NAMA President and CEO Richard M. Geerdes, NCE, announced today. The Treasure Hunt game is the latest tool in the Balanced for Life Operator Tool Box which is designed to provide materials for members to use in their own communities to help address rising obesity rates by communicating the importance of a balanced diet and being physically active.
In discussing the Trivia Treasure Hunt game Geerdes said, “We’ve created everything an operator needs to offer this health and fitness game to their school accounts. Members just visit www.balancedforlife.net, click on the new Operator tab, and follow the instructions. We’re delighted to offer this new resource which we hope will be another important example of how our industry is working to be part of the solution by educating our nation’s youth about the importance of a balanced diet and physical activity.”
The Treasure Hunt game includes promotional materials describing the game, and 12 posters that operators can download and place around their school account. Each poster includes a health or fitness related question that students answer by entering the information on the Balanced for Life website. The first ten students in a particular school to answer all the questions correctly win a prize. NAMA recommends that operators take advantage of the discount NAMA has arranged with Kinkos when they print up Treasure Hunt materials. All of the directions are available under the Operator link at www.balancedforlife.net.
Questions on the posters are posed by the BFL characters – AJ the Athlete, Healthy Hazel and Sean the Smart Guy – and quiz students on their knowledge about the elements of a balanced diet and physical activity. Sample questions include, “The government guidelines for healthy eating also encourage how many minutes of exercise a day,” and “What is the term for food produced in an environmentally friendly manner?” The answers for all the questions are available at www.balancedforlife.net. Operators are also encouraged to place the posters over a wide area of the school’s grounds to get students active while they are playing the game.
The Treasure Hunt game is the latest element in the Balanced for Life Operator Tool Box which was created to give members specific tools they could use in their own community. Other Tool Box items include:
- Point of Sale materials, including Snack Smart brochures, Be A Smart Snacker Brochures, static clings, posters and stickers;
- Access to a registered dietitian;
- A First Responder Kit with instructions for addressing the issue with local media outlets, local legislators, schools and community groups;
- A nutrition computation worksheet, to help determine the nutritional composition of foods to help meet school mandated nutrition requirements;
- A Balanced for Life video that summarizes our campaign;
- Ask Me About Balanced for Life buttons.
In addition, while the first phase of the Balanced for Life campaign focused on materials designed to address the issue in the schools, phase two will focus on developing materials for operators with B&I accounts to share with their customers.
Concluded Geerdes, “We’ve had a tremendously positive response from our members about the tools developed so far in the Operator Tool Box, and we hope they will find this game helpful too as an example of our work to be part of the solution.”
For more information about any aspect of the campaign visit www.balancedforlife.net, or email BFL Team Leader Jackie Clark at jclark26@juno.com.
NAMA is the national trade association of the food and refreshment vending, coffee services and foodservice management industries including on-site, commissary, catering, & mobile. Its membership is comprised of service companies, equipment manufacturers and suppliers of products and services to operating service companies. The basic mission of the association, to collectively advance and promote the automatic merchandising and OCS industries, still guides NAMA today as it did in 1936, the year of the organization’s founding.
