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Promoting Better Health
Strategies
Media Campaigns
Young people today
belong to a multimedia generation. The average child spends more than 4
hours a day using electronic media.18 Although this staggering
amount of media use poses certain problems, it also creates an
opportunity: Young people are a willing audience that can be reached
through a variety of media. Communicating to young people through an
ongoing, well-designed multimedia campaign can play an important role in
increasing their motivation to be physically active.
Strategy 9:
Implement an ongoing media campaign to promote physical education as an
important component of a quality education and long-term health.
This campaign must take
advantage of all that communication and marketing experts have learned
about how to develop effective mass media messages. Testing messages for
appeal and appropriateness with different groups is essential, as is
involving young people in all aspects of campaign planning and
implementation. Special efforts should be made to reach out to those
population segments in greatest need, including girls and members of
racial/ethnic minority groups. Culturally and linguistically appropriate
messages should be designed for these groups and delivered through
targeted communication channels. Communication to parents, educators, and
health care professionals also should be a central part of this campaign.
While the campaign
should take advantage of traditional media (e.g., television and radio
ads), it should also target the new media (e.g., Internet-based
activities) that are so popular with young people. The same integrated
communication tactics that are employed by leading marketers (e.g., movie
promotion campaigns using ads, news media outreach, events, and
appropriate product tie-ins) might be tried. A national media campaign
should be integrated with state and local efforts.
The USOC can play a
valuable role in this initiative by identifying and coordinating the
participation of Olympic and Paralympic athletes in public appearances and
advertisements promoting physical fitness. In addition, the PCPFS should
work with professional sports leagues to mount a targeted effort to
promote quality, daily physical education in our nation’s schools.
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