A New Program for Healthy Eating Study Using a Card Game

A new program using a card game for study of children's food risk communication was developed to meet the needs of learning healthy eating. To examine the effects of the new program, an experiment was carried out in an elementary school with 132 students.

The game rules resemble those of common card games. Keeping seven cards in their hands, players exchange one of their cards for another card from the card stack to make a set of food they usually eat. Through the process, they can learn other players' dietary lives. The effects of the card game program and the control program were evaluated by a questionnaire study.

Scores for three characteristics-enjoyment, satisfaction, and communication with the other players-for the new program showed higher average values compared with the conventional program without the game.

The findings indicate that the newly developed program is beneficial for children's learning healthy eating.