How do you help a child adopt healthier habits? The füdoo Board offers one possible answer: Make it fun. Billed as an educational tool for learning healthy habits, the füdoo board uses a colorful dry-erase board and color-coded magnets depicting common foods, making it easy for kids to track their daily food intake and activity levels. And, in keeping with the company’s motto of “Eat! Drink! Move! Think!” the board also encourages kids to be adventurous, create, read and dream.
The füdoo Board comes with a 12” board that tracks food intake on one side and activity/creativity on the other, a dry erase marker, 95 color-coded magnets and a brief “How to” handbook. The magnets include vegetables, fruits, proteins, dairy, grains and water. Also included are blank magnets that can be labeled with foods not included, as well as “sometimes” foods or occasional treats. The guidebook explains how to use the board, along with the basics of good nutrition, including serving sizes and tips for healthier choices. The guidebook also encourages users to move more, think big and always be willing to try new things, and tips specific to teens are given throughout the guide. Parents are urged to go over the boards with their children at dinner or bedtime, highlighting improvements or suggesting healthier options for the future.
Numerous research studies have found that keeping track of one’s food intake can be a powerful tool for creating healthy habits and for losing weight. Therefore, füdoo boards have the potential to influence kids’ behaviors by allowing them to track their intake and activity. Although the board is somewhat cumbersome, especially if more than one serving of any food is eaten on a single day, it does offer guidance on appropriate serving sizes and can highlight foods that should be eaten more (or less) often, such as vegetables or proteins.
Although very young children will be drawn to using the magnets, the füdoo is probably more appropriate for elementary school-aged kids and teens. Unfortunately, only one person may use the board at a time, so larger families will require multiple boards.
Perhaps the most positive feature of the füdoo board is the overall philosophy behind its use—to get kids to rethink how they spend their time and what they put in their bodies and in their minds. By making these activities feel like an adventure, kids will undoubtedly be encouraged to view making healthy choices and habits as fun and enjoyable rather than a punishment.
What we liked:
- Features colorful, high-quality materials and a brief, but clear instruction guide
- Makes it easy for kids to track daily intake and activity levels
- Encourages healthy behaviors in a fun and relaxed way
What we didn’t like:
- Food tracking can be cumbersome if more than one serving per food is consumed in a given day
- Board can only be used by one user; multiple boards are required for multiple children
September 1, 2012