Getting kids to eat their greens is one of those borderline stereotypical hurdles that most parents will come up against in the rearing of their young’uns. Wouldn’t it be great to actively engage the kids, to give them some sense of the value of these types of foods? The app world has provided an answer. Continuing a recent line of apps deemed ‘edutainment’ (a handy little portmanteau that goes beyond quirky into actual relevance) is Green Box Heroes, a world of nutrition, education and exercise excitement in the palm of your hand. Aimed primarily at kids, though featuring more than a little parental support, it’s free, informative, fun, and available now for iOS.
Green Box Heroes takes the form of an interactive comic book, full of activities that kids are bound to love. The aim of the app is to teach kids (and adults!) a thing or two about nutrition while also promoting fun. The core to this approach is a collection of heroic characters, each one representing some key facet to living healthily. And there’s quite a collection. Everyone from the plucky Cosmo Cucumber to the drowsy Sammy Sleep are present and correct. By accessing the ‘Hero Book’ feature on the menu, you’re taken to an index of these colourful protagonists. Click one, and you can access hundreds of facts, such as, ’onions can act as a powerful antibiotic and are helpful in reducing food-borne illnesses’. You learn something new every day!
There’s also the ‘Story Book’ mode, which comprises 26 episodes of a self-contained story, featuring Green Box Heroes’ wide array of characters. This feature is specifically directed at the young ones, and with the cool animation and voice over, there’s no doubt the kids will easily be drawn in. There’s an exercise index which contains a number of D.I.Y. exercises, as well as instructions on how to perform them correctly. Fourth on the list is a ‘Colouring Book‘, which lets you recreate scenes from the ‘Story Book’, utilising a selection of colouring pencils. I found this feature disturbingly engaging, and I‘m not above admitting it; so if it has that effect on a 26-year-old, I presume a 6-year-old will hit the roof. The other neat little feature is an inbuilt calculator, which lets you tot up weight loss, body mass, calorie burn or nutritional values. As I booted up the body mass calculator, I’ll admit again to a moment of fear; maybe I was happy in my ignorance, not knowing my body mass, or how far wrong it was…luckily, I scraped into the ‘average for my height’ demographic, so all is well there.
All in all, this app is a health-conscious, fun addition to the growing number of kids’ apps out there. It can be enjoyed by adults too, even all the family together. Its wide range of activities will ensure the kids are engaged for the long haul, while the info and facts they’re absorbing as they play are of serious benefit to their health and future. Green Box Heroes combines the best of both worlds.
Jog on over to the iPhone store to get your nutritional does of Green Box Heroes for free today!
