Los Angeles Collaborative Meeting Overview of Youth Activism Against Obesity

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Los Angeles Collaborative MeetingOverview of
Youth Activism Against Obesity

• March 26, 2009

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Youth Activism Against Obesity(YAAO)

South LA Baldwin Park
This project was made possible by a grant from
the Vitamin Cases Consumer Settlement Fund.
Created as a result of an antitrust class
action, one of the purposes of the Fund is to
improve the health and nutrition of California
Consumers.
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YAAO Goals

• P Increase middle school and HS students
  awareness of the health risks of consuming fast
  food soda and promote health food choices and
  PA.
• S Increase students involvement in food policy
  advocacy in school, in the community the online
  community
• Methodology
• Evidenced-based marketing strategies
• Social marketing utilizing Internet social
  networks
• Peer leadership
• Engaging youth as problem solvers
• Strong focus on a Youth Participatory Model

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YAAOs Marketing Objective
Social Change
Activism Advocacy
Personal Change
Awakening
Education
Apathy
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What we know about the target

• Limited grasp of valid nutritional, health and
  exercise knowledge
• Deceptive marketing/advertising creates anger but
  they dont go beyond it
• Willingness to get behind cause considered worthy
• Advice from adults is NOT cool
• Would eat less FF if that made them more
  attractive
• Digital natives, social networkers and natural
  born texters
• Some are natural leaders, others followers must
  target both

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Media Usage (Oct 2008)

• 74 (ages 8-18) live in a home with Internet
• 60 have access to IM
• 6 hrs/d (ages 8-18) using media (gt1/time)
• 99-04 (alt) youth reported using C/I for
  recreation increased from 27 ? 62 min daily
• Internet surfing from 7?14 min. daily

RWJ Food and Beverage Marketing to Children
Adolescents What Changes are Needed to Promote
Healthy Eating Habits? October, 2008
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Connected Teens

• Text messaging doubled
• 2 to 4.7 billion messages
• sent (2003 2004)
• 66 of 13 24 yr olds routinely
• text message
• (2008)
• 34 (ages 15-17)
• 40 (ages 12-14)

Carry their own cell phone
Center for Science in the Public Interest and RWJ
Research 2008
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Global Village

• You Tube.com
• 70-100M clips viewed daily
• 65K uploaded daily

• My Space.com
• 124 million profiles posted in 2.5 years
• mid-2006 attracted 230K new users/d

facebook.com 8/6/2006 100 millionth account
9/8/2006 106 millionth account
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Training topics

• Nutrition and healthy eating
• Physical activity
• Youth as Change Agents
• The Photovoice Project
• Media Literacy
• Social Marketing
• Working with Celebrities
• Website Creation / Management
• Website Messaging
• Web Video Production

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The teen approach

• Early Adolescents
• More receptive to adults
• Rely on adults for direction
• Just say no! works
• Middle to Late adolescents
• More concerned with physical appearance
• Less receptive to authority
• Look to differentiate themselves
• Do not like to be told what to do

Newberger, E (1999). The Men They Will Become.
Perseus Publishing.
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What have we learned so far?

• As students get older, they get less
  encouragement to conduct PA from their parents
• 18 surveyed said that they often do physical
  activity with their friends.
• 9th graders usually tend to overestimate their
  weights compared to 10, 11, 12 graders
• 60 non-youth leaders (NYL) eat fast food
  1-2/week
• 20 NYL report eating fresh fruit every day
• 26 NYL report eating vegetables every day
• 45 NYL report eat home cooked meals every day

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Best practice truthR campaign

• Evidenced-based research
• National youth-focused anti-tobacco
• education campaign
• Empower teens to make informed decisions
• Blame placed on the industry, not the youth

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Ning

• What is it?
• Platform for creating Social Networks
• Offers the latest social networking features
• Powers the largest number of social networks on
  the Internet

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Social Media Campaign Flow
Viral Video
User-driven social content Web sites
Social Networks
Viral Videos
Traffic / Links
Traffic / Links
Involvement
YAAO Web site Social Network
Viral Articles
Traffic / Links
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Creating Opportunities

• Youth collaboration and network with four
  remaining HEAC sites in CA
• Youth collaboration with network and non-network
  funded agencies sharing same goals
• Youth become content creators
• Youth find their advocacy voice
• Peer to peer mentoring
• Empower youth to take responsibility, speak up,
  raise awareness, organize, and drive real change
  in their communities

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Wild Posting 1
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Wild Posting 2
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Wild Posting 3
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YAAO - Empowering Youth to Lead Change!