Agencies Flexing for 'Tween'-Target Initiative

As the deadline approaches for round one of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s $125 million Youth Media Campaign review, the requirements for winning are becoming clear.

Congress has put a spin on the project, an outreach promoting healthy habits in so-called “tweens”: youths between the ages of nine and 13.

Unlike ongoing anti-tobacco work or the battle against AIDS, the emphasis in the Youth Media Campaign will be to encourage healthy behavior among a population that, according to research, is increasingly inactive and overweight.

“We want ideas on how to reach this audience,” said Michael Greenwell, CDC associate director of communications, “and messages encouraging young people to be involved in positive activities, like exercise, that will displace opportunities for things that are unhealthy.”

As presently conceived, the two-pronged campaign will involve a general-market effort and a separate program targeting minority youth.