live / 2018

New Obesity War (NOW) led by mentor trained kids to change the lifestyle of their families.


Idea submitted in the My LA2050 Activation Challenge by Science Academy For All

Kids (Elementary to high school) would be mentored for project based research on different foods to lead their families for healthy lifestyle change and reduce obesity.

Please describe the activation your organization seeks to launch.

  1. Mentor and Motivate kids for a healthy life style and initiate a New obesity war.

  2. Enhance their capability as leaders

  3. Instill the inclination for learning science and emerge as budding scientists

Which of the live metrics will your activation impact?​

  • Obesity rates

Will your proposal impact any other LA2050 goal categories?

  • LA is the best place to LEARN

In what areas of Los Angeles will you be directly working?

  • East LA
  • San Fernando Valley

How will your activation mobilize Angelenos?

  • Trainings and/or in-person engagements
  • Influence individual behavior
  • Connect Angelenos with impactful volunteer opportunities
  • Increase donations to organizations and causes



Specific AIM #1: Train kids with a research based approach about the healthy lifestyle so that they can take initiative in the family to eat healthy.

Rationale: Parents with busy LA life tend to give into kids demands for soda and fast food. The New Obesity War (NOW) focusses on kids being trained to take a lead on fighting obesity and improve family health.

The Story:

A second grader, Gauri Gupta, was given a tablet and was asked to make a table of sugar and salt content of twenty soft drinks. She loved collecting the information with a picture of the contents label. With continued guidance and motivation by the mentor, she not only collected the data but changed her entire family.

Lessons Learnt:

a) To read the ingredient labels and notice the calories and drink size.

b) The good, bad and ugly side of the salt and sugar in the drinks from the mentor.

c) The daily requirements of salt and sugar.

d) Critically think and Ask questions

e) Conduct research on the topics using tablet

f) Create Word and Excel documents.

g) Arrange the data, identify the pattern

h) Learnt presentation style

i) Tell parents about the harmful effects of excess salt and sugar in the soft drinks and actually stop them from buying soda and soft drinks.


a) Pizza was cut down and soda was replaced by milk or water instead soda. In two months, the father Amit Gupta lost ten pounds.

b) Five year old sibling wants to do a project. He is excited about drinking water and making different shapes of water as ice.

c) Both kids got interested in STEM education at an early stage.

d) Mother cooks healthy with awareness about salt and sugar.

e) The kid induced a life style change for the family.


Specific AIM #2: Empower kids to SUSTAIN healthy lifestyle with an educational approach about consequences of obesity. Mental health awareness would be introduced to overcome and avoid stress related eating disorders. Stress resilience would be instilled with Dance, Yoga and Pranayam.


Healthy life style needs to be sustained by education and supplemented by family fun workout. Mental health is the backbone of healthy lifestyle and must be addressed. Another major hurdle is stress related eating disorder.


This would be a collaborative effort with the partners:

  1. Sheila Kar Health Foundation would hold a workshop on Heart Health, Diabetes and other health consequences of obesity. The workshop would include two speakers and panel discussion with kids and their families.

  2. Science Academy for All would organize a Metal Health Day with two experts from Columbia University and hold a question-answer session with the cohort of 25 kids and their families.

  3. Masala Bhangra founder, Sarina Jain, would hold an all- day ‘Dance workshop and show’ to train all ages the fun workouts. Here is the link to her videos:

  4. Nand Shiv Durga Mandir would hold monthly workshops for teaching Yoga and Pranayam.



Project Design:

For this project, 25 Kids (elementary to high school students) with at least one obese member of the family, would be recruited from schools and faith based organizations from East LA and San Fernando Valley. They would be motivated and mentored for a research project based learning regarding nutrition, especially calories, sugar and salt. They would be given a tablet to collect the data to share in a monthly meeting with the mentors. The kids would finish the projects in 3-4 months and share with their families. Based on their research, they would record the changes in their own lifestyle and the lifestyle of their family. The outcome would be measured as weight and BMI of each member.The project and results would be presented to the community at the end of year in a fundraising dinner as well as on the website.


Success would be defined as a measureable change over at least a month. The kids with the help of associates and volunteers would be recording the success in their tablets.

The success would be measured by the following outcome in six months after completion of the project in 3-4 months:

  1. Weekly Weight of each member of the family.

  2. Monthly Dietary changes implemented and sustained by the family.

  3. Monthly BMI of each member.

  4. Final Rubric for reduction in Calories, Saturated Fats, Salt, Sugar and High Fructose Corn Syrup by the families.

  5. Feedback and Testimonials from families, volunteers and community.


We would win the war on Obesity in LA by making it less than 8 percent.

It would create at least 50 budding leaders in Science Education by our next vision of ‘Each One, Reach One’