Sesame Street Teaches the ABC's of Healthy Eating

The wildly popular children's program has a new audience –– the "food insecure" according to Newsweek who got a sneak peek into what's new on Sesame Street.

The term refers to the more than 49 million American households who don't have enough money to put regular, decent food on the table. These low-income families also tend to lack transportation to make a trip to a grocery store, leaving them to buy food from the convenience store on the corner — hardly the place to find the makings of a nutritious meal.

In order to shed some light for kids and parents alike, the Sesame Workshop, which is the nonprofit organization behind the show, has created a bilingual (English and Spanish) multimedia program to educate families about health and economical food choices.

Food for Thought: Eating Well on a Budget will arrive on DVD come December and will include a nutrition guide and healthy kid-friendly recipes.

For the project Sesame Workshop teamed up with the Merck Company Foundation and AmeriChoice-UnitedHealthcare, which provides healthcare services to low-income communities. Those two companies, in addition to the National WIC Association and the hunger-relief nonprofit Feeding America, will distribute the program.

Without access to, or the knowledge of, healthy options, areas of lower economic status have a higher rate of poor nutrition and obesity. In fact, recent studies have found that obesity and poor neighborhoods are directly associated.

“The link between poverty, race, and obesity is undeniable,” says Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink, a research institute focused on economic and social equity.

While the subject matter can really hit home in a sensitive way, the program is presented in typical Sesame Street fashion, with innocence and humor. All of the beloved characters are involved, including their new buddy Super Foods who dishes out healthy-eating advice in a way that doesn't make mention of any kind of socio-economic limitations.

Photo courtesy of Sesame Workshop.