Take A Fruit Break Campaign

Before

Take a Fruit Break

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Reasons why we think that take a fruit break is a good idea.

1. One in three American children is overweight.

2. This number is growing steadily, and has been since 1963.

3. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), if current trends continue, the human and financial costs of this burgeoning public health crisis will soon cancel out all the advances made with the decline in smoking!

4. We live in a food-saturated environment, and lifestyle changes like eating out, urban sprawl and families with two working parents are key contributors.

5. Ultimately, everyone shares responsibility for making today's children an extra large, and unhealthy, generation.

6. Deaths of young people from diseases related to being overweight is triple that of deaths resulting from tobacco, AIDS, guns, and drug use combined.

7. Soft drink manufacturers pay schools much needed large sums of up-front money to put soft drink vending machines in schools.

8. Diabetes is a $100,000,000,000 (one hundred billion dollar) a year industry.

9. Today's children are inundated with more junk food commercials than any other generation in history.

10. If the situation persists unchecked, in 10 years we may see many people in their 20s and 30s dying from diabetes, obesity, cancer, and heart conditions.

This information was presented in a recent episode of "Investigative Report" called "The Supersize Generation" on A&E. One in three kids in the U.S. are overweight! It may seem like a relatively small problem, but when you think about the loss of quality of life for so many children, you realize this could be one of the major problems of our time.

As a nation we are one of the wealthiest and best educated groups of people in the world. So why are we so sick. If you look at Saturday morning cartoons you will see a mass of junk food commercials aimed at kids. All the major kids movies from Disney to Dreamworks are riddled with junk food advertising. Even in the schools junk food machines are abundant. And the school cafeterias push huge amounts of junk food at our kids. It just hit me all at once. "Have we lost our minds"? We are a nation that is devouring our own youth to fund our entertainment-saturated lifestyle. Every one of us is guilty. The results. For me personally of the 25 relatives that I grew up with only five are still alive. Everyone I know has lost someone they love to some debilitating disease.

I just received a phone call telling me that a young girl who used to baby-sit our daughter died of cancer. She was just twenty-two years old. We are not going to be able to turn the junk food industry around in a day. We at Ekaya Institute realize this but we feel that by making eating fruit the cool thing to do that we can make a healthy start. We believe that corporations are viable entities that get things done. We are not trying to shut down the corporations, but just to get them to upgrade their product. A good example of this is bottled water. When Coca-Cola saw how big the bottled water industry had become they started adding it to their distribution networks and vending machines. The reason being there were so many hip ads on TV showing cool people drinking water that it became good business to sell water. We want to do the same thing with the "Let's take a fruit break" ads.

Our plan is to make eating fruit "cool" by getting the kids to create the "fruit break" commercials. But putting the "Lets take a fruit break" ads in the language of today's youth, these ads will be far more effective than if they were made using the voice of adult reasoning. We have designed a competition for high shcool and college animation and film production departments to compete for cash prizes. We will award and use the top commercials and air them on cable and network television. We believe that these kids will generate some of the most creative spots on TV today and at the same time be a voice of reason and balance in the media and entertainment landscape that is such a large and influential part of kids' lives today.

We are currently raising funds to buy TV air time via donations from individuals, corporations and foundations. Donations are tax deductible. Donations may be anonymous or sponsored upon request, in the format: "This Fruit Break was brought to you by...".

To donate any amount to fund this campaign and send our kids a powerful message inspiring them to put some healthy fuel in their bodies, click here.

Click here for a sample of Paradox's beautiful acoustic music.

Click here to donate $10 or more and receive your music CD. Donations are tax-deductible. We've made it fast and simple for you using PayPal, a safe way of donating online.

Checks or money orders to Ekaya Institute can be sent to 15-180 Central Rd., Duncan, BC, Canada V9L 5X7.

Companies who make a significant donation may, upon request, receive credit in fruit break commercials for sponsoring this campaign.