‘Whats in a brochure’
It was a struggle for me to search for nutrition brochure online for our blog topic this week. And I think this is a good thing because brochure is a form of handout that should be given in hard copies. Electronic forms of nutrition information might be taken less seriously than when the information is present right in front of our eyes. However, I looked at http://nutritioneducationstore.com/products/Kids_MyPlate_and_Physical_Activity_Brochure_Packet_of_25-738-184.html I found a cartoonish brochure that struck my attention. This attention is not necessary one that is very positive, and I will be talking about this later.
The purpose of this brochure is to educate children on how to eat right and remain healthy. If I were to put myself in these children’s shoes, I would not be interested in reading this brochure. The images in the brochure are very unexciting. However, the brochure did make the fonts very simple to read and follow. At first, I was not even sure if the brochure was targeting towards children or the adults who have children themselves. This is because the brochure did not specifically identify its target audience. In terms of content, I think the information in there are very valuable. When telling the children to be active, the brochure gives examples of things children can do. These examples are also vey suitable for the children’s age. For example: Biking, hiking, jumping, dance and even walk with friends are great examples of what children can do to be active. Even when talking about what kinds of foods are important for the children to eat, the brochure gave examples for each food group on the other side. Though not detailed, the brochure did do a good job of listing out what are examples of protein, dairy, fruits, vegetables and grains. What I think would be more effective is if the brochure had given specific meal. For example: when talking about dairy, given the circumstances that the child does not like to drink milk plainly- the child may refuse to drink just milk. Therefore, the brochure could have suggested that milk can be consume with whole wheat/grain cereals which will in fact serve both dairy and whole grains intake requirements.
The brochure does a really good job in highlighting important information to be remembered by changing the color of the font to purple. For example: “ Make half the grains you eat whole grains, every day” or “ Choosing lean protein foods and low-fat dairy milk is good for your heart. A good way to make those information stand out and seem more important is by bolding the fonts, however, even though not done I was able to remember those important information because it was simple and concise.
I think the brochure would be effective had it used real life images instead of just cartoon images. However, the information provided in the brochure itself are informative and easy to understand. Would I use it in a clinical setting or in a school? No. This is simply because I know that without proper imaging, children will not be interested in reading the brochures. There is nothing that can quickly grab their attention.