At least she’s drinking diet

PepsiCo, makers of delicious salty snacks and sugary beverages, has created a new videogame called “Live Healthily”. The game is being added to the curriculum of over a million primary school students and will be evaluated by the National Pediatric Institute. The goal of “Live Healthily” is to teach Mexican children how not to be fat-asses. Much like their American neighbors to the north, Mexico has an epidemic on their hands when it comes to childhood obesity.

An estimated 80% of schools have no access to drinking water and instead turn to the tasty-cheap cola companies for all their thirst-quenching needs. In fact, Mexicans consume more soda than any other country in the world, except of course for the U.S. (we rule at everything).

72% of our Mexican compadres are actually animated Pepsi products

It’s fairly easy to draw a parallel between this soda love and kiddy fat, but PepsiCo “wants to be seen as part of the solution”. Their Sims-like game has children deciding what to eat and drink, as well as what to do for exercise. They have a basic goal of matching up their calories ingested with the calories they use up in a day.

PepsiCo vice president of corporate affairs in Mexico, Jorge Meyer, claims that “It isn’t about whether soda is good or bad for you.” They don’t deny that excessive soda drinking can make you fat. Instead of drinking less Pepsi, however, we should all just exercise more. They want to help prevent childhood obesity, but not at the risk of less sales of their product. Perhaps we should just continue buying it but stop drinking it, eh?

So this begs the obvious question: Why doesn’t PepsiCo just make healthier drinks instead? “We are already producing nutritional products,” Meyer says. “The problem is that Mexicans haven’t wanted to buy them.”A meaty 9-year-old butterball confirms this sentiment by stating “I don’t like drinks without flavor”. Whether or not PepsiCo’s “Live Healthily” game will have any impact on childhood obesity remains to be seen.

At the very least, I commend PepsiCo for at least trying something new. It’s nice that they’re using videogames as a positive tool to connect with children and get the message out there. Then again, what if the game is just a marketing tool full of subliminal messages and is just brainwashing all these kids? Nah, big corporations never do stuff like that…

The Pepsi Building in Mexico

For more information on this story, check out The Guardian.