i’m stressing over the capstone project, and I have one week to figure things out before my review.

Hopefully by writing things out I can get a clearer picture, and i’m welcome to any feedback or suggestions…

I decided to focus on childhood obesity in low income families. I found out that as parent awareness and education on the matter goes up, the lower the chances their child would be obese – and this applies to both low and high income families. Thus, my goal is to educate the parents (low income) on how to eat and live healthy lives.

I’ve researched ways to communicate this info and unfortunately, the best option i could think of was PSAs (public service announcement). That limits it to 30 seconds, so i’ll have to do at least 3 stories that focus on different issues. I was originally going to do 1-2 minute animations that would be shown in the doctors office or hospital waiting rooms, but I found out that a lot of low income families don’t have medical care so they would usually go to the ER instead. ER’s are a bit tough to deal with too because there’s a wide range of patients there – and there would probably be no sound coming from the screen anyway.

here’s a list of the factors:
Parents aren’t aware that their children are overweight or obese
Their environment is unsafe to play (exercise) in
There are no grocery stores in the vicinity
Fast food is cheaper, some minority families eat it because its the ‘american way’
Parents don’t know where to get information about losing weight and being active
Parents are too busy to make meals

things that could be addressed:
buying healthy foods on a budget
how to get their children to eat healthy
what exercises can be done in the house
what exercises can be done through the community
how to live actively throughout the day
etc…

right now it feels a bit overwhelming. I really wanted to do an animated story, and technically I can, but i’m only limited to 30 seconds. I think i’m just a bit bummed because I wanted my capstone to be something cooler than “how to” videos. But one of my professors told me that the capstone is just another project – if i treat it like something more, its gonna get to me…and i guess it already has.

i guess its back to the drawing board… :(

p.s. i really wonder why they don’t make these any more :)
Timer from the 80’s