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Parents' Guide to

Pick Your Plate!

By Mieke VanderBorght, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 5+

Meal-builder game teaches nutrition from around the world.

App iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad , Android , Kindle Fire Free Family Games
Pick Your Plate! Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this app.

  • Pick Your Plate! App: Screenshot #1
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  • Pick Your Plate! App: Screenshot #3
  • Pick Your Plate! App: Screenshot #4
  • Pick Your Plate! App: Screenshot #5

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Privacy Rating Warning

  • Personal information is sold or rented to third parties.
  • Unclear whether personal information are shared for third-party marketing.
  • Personalised advertising is displayed.
  • Unclear whether data are collected by third-parties for their own purposes.
  • User's information is used to track and target advertisements on other third-party websites or services.
  • Unclear whether this product creates and uses data profiles for personalised advertisements.
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What’s It About?

Choose a country to start playing PICK YOUR PLATE!. Currently kids can visit Mexico, the United States, Argentina, Finland, Benin, Lebanon, Cambodia, or Australia. Read a short description of your chosen country's dietary guidelines, and then tap Play. Choose what to eat for breakfast from the available foods, being careful to not go over the meal budget. Each food is also worth a certain number of portion points that represent how much of the daily recommendations that food meets. After picking the foods, tap Eat. Then do the same for lunch and dinner. The goal is, after three meals, to get as close as possible to fulfilling the recommended portions in each food group without going over. Repeat to get a better score or return to the home menu to choose another country.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

In this simple game, kids see clearly that different meal choices have different consequences for how well they meet nutritional guidelines. Though the nutritional guides from various countries are quite similar, Pick Your Plate! nicely introduces a variety of local foods for kids to choose from. Within each country, those choices are always the same, however, so as kids play multiple rounds, they'll always work with the same options. Don't be fooled, though! The game is simple, but it's not easy to meet all the dietary requirements and stay in budget with just three meals. Kids may have to play several times before they earn a medal, let alone a gold one. There are also lots of icons that represent different food groups, and though they're pretty clear, it may take kids a few rounds before they get used to the portion points system and how it works. Another possible downside is that because the game focuses solely on creating a correctly balanced diet, having too many fruit and vegetable portion points is penalized in the same way that having too many fat points is, which may be confusing. But overall, Pick Your Plate! is a great way to learn about nutrition and food from around the world, and a launch pad from which kids and parents can discuss and explore their dietary choices in real life.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the foods featured in Pick Your Plate!. Which foods or dishes are new to you? Which ones would you be interested in trying?

  • Compare and contrast the nutritional guidelines from different countries. What similarities do you notice? What are the biggest differences? How are the guidelines influenced by local culture?

  • Talk about how your kids' choices in the app compare to their choices in real life. How well does their diet fulfill the nutritional guidelines? If there's room for improvement, what are one or two easy changes to make to eat a more balanced diet?

  • Engage your kids in making meal plans, grocery shopping, and food preparation. They may be inspired to try new things!

  • Learn more about the countries kids visit in the app. What language do they speak there? What can you find out about their culture, geography, climate, and so on?

App Details

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