The Incredible Adventures of the Amazing Food Detective
By Jinny Gudmundsen,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Kids become detectives to fight childhood obesity.
A Lot or a Little?
What you will—and won't—find in this game.
Where to Play
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What’s It About?
In THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF THE AMAZING FOOD DETECTIVE (www.AmazingFoodDetective.com), a free online game, children join forces with a detective to solve eight mysteries of why some kids are unhealthy. By playing the game, kids learn about healthy foods and exercise habits. The Amazing Food Detective, an animated female gumshoe, provides kids with a lineup of eight children from diverse cultural backgrounds, each representing a mystery. Some of the mysteries deal with children who exercise but are not very strong (solution: eat more protein), who skip breakfast, and who eat too much; in each, the player helps the unhealthy children make changes to their lifestyles.
Is It Any Good?
A unique feature of this online game presented by Kaiser Permanente is that it shuts off after 20 minutes, encourages kids to go do something active, and then keeps them out of the game for 60 minutes. The game can be played in English or Spanish. In addition to unlocking Mini games, each mystery links to printable materials including healthy recipes, Internet scavenger hunts, experiments, exercises, and more.
Kaiser Permanente, a leading health maintenance organization, has partnered with Scholastic to distribute this game and related teaching materials and parent guides to 5,000 schools. Teachers and parents interested in these supplemental materials can find them for free on the Web at www.AmazingFoodDetective.com.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the mysteries. Why was the child featured in each mystery unhealthy, and how did your actions change his or her life? Have you experienced any of the problems these children faced? Which of the printable materials did you find useful? The recipes? The exercise logs? The scavenger hunt?
Game Details
- Platforms: Windows, Mac
- Pricing structure: Free
- Available online?: Available online
- Publisher: Kaiser Permanente
- Release date: September 28, 2007
- Genre: Edutainment
- ESRB rating: E
- Last updated: November 4, 2015
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