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The National Cancer Institute launches the Cancer Fighter video game to educate children about preventable cancers. Your mission, if you accept it, is to adopt as many healthy habits as possible, materialized in the form of bonuses, to free adults bewitched by a deleterious spirit.
What better way than video games to reach children and teenagers? In many areas, brands now use them to present their new products and reach an ever-growing audience, so why not use them to inform the youngest about risky behaviors to avoid in order to protect themselves from certain diseases?
The National Cancer Institute now uses this means of communication to raise awareness among 10-12 year olds about preventable cancers. The video game “cancer fighter“aims, in a fun and educational way, to inform them about the risk behaviors responsible for more than 40% of preventable cancers, such as lack of physical activity and sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, tobacco consumption, or even the ‘Sun exposure.
“The universe developed in Cancer Fighter makes it possible to convey clearly understandable messages in an educational format and to provide the keys to action. (…) This game highlights practical advice and good habits to adopt on a daily basis to promote protective behavior “, explains the Institute in a press release.
Adult lives at risk
A college serves as the backdrop for this video game in which adults have been bewitched by a harmful spirit that seeks to endanger their lives. As a result, the sports teacher is amorphous, the chef swears by junk food, and teenagers smoke in front of the college while exposing themselves unprotected to the sun. The hero is given a mission: to save the adults by catching as many bonuses as possible and avoiding penalties. The latter look through healthy habits and risky behaviors, respectively.
In the gym, it is therefore better to go to the baskets and balls than to the screens and the armchairs, while green vegetables and fish will increase your score in the canteen, unlike sweets and hamburgers. The whole being punctuated by informative bubbles intended to inform the youngest about the dangers – or the benefits – of all of these elements.
The video game is accessible on cancer-fighter.com but children and adolescents can also learn about cancer prevention on Preventionenfant.e-cancer.fr .