¶ … Health Promotion Pamphlet • Layout appeal • Content quality • Reading level • Clarity • Examples health promotion pamphlet • Usefulness • Cultural sensitivity competence • Helpful hints tips -care management • Appropriate literacy level target audience Include publication information pamphlet

The importance of fruits and vegetables:

A current health promotion pamphlet's appropriateness for the general public

Obesity is on the rise in America. Given this concern, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) has produced a pamphlet on the need to incorporate more fruits and vegetables into meals. The title of the pamphlet reads: "How to use fruits and vegetables to manage your weight," so it is explicitly promoted as weight maintenance publication. The cover is orange and features photographs of a cauliflower, cherries, a banana, an orange pepper, and peas, presumably chosen because of their attractive colors, the balance they signify in the eater's diet, and also their relative popularity as foods.

The first page of the pamphlet explains why eating more fruits and vegetables can help the reader create and maintain healthy weight loss. "Using more fruits and vegetables along with whole grains and lean meats, nuts, and beans is a safe and healthy" [method to lose weight] (How to use fruits and vegetables to manage your weight, 2012, CDC: 2). Fruits and vegetables to fill up the eater. Because they are high in fiber and water, it is easier to eat relatively large amounts of fruits and vegetables and lose weight, versus other substances.

The brochure does not discuss many of the other health benefits of fruits and vegetables, but instead focuses on obesity reduction. It contains many brightly-colored...

Sometimes people eat to make themselves feel good" (How to use fruits and vegetables to manage your weight, 2012, CDC: 2). It notes that this is not the subject of the pamphlet, and directs the reader to seek out other forms of support. This interjection seems rather harsh and jarring, and indicates how the advice in the pamphlet may not be appropriate for readers who may simply eat too much, rather than eat the 'wrong' kinds of food (i.e., no fruits and vegetables, and high-fat meats and starches).
The pamphlet is designed to make healthy food look attractive, in terms of its presentation. It depicts how additional greens can be added to a sandwich or pasta visually, to underline a list of suggestions about how to incorporate more fruits and vegetables into the eater's diet. The pamphlet lists meals, and for every meal it offers strategies to slip more fruits and vegetables into food, like substituting an extra egg or cheese with spinach, or putting more fruit than cereal in one's bowl at breakfast. Lettuce can be added instead of additional sandwich meat. There is also important information about portion control: reversing the ratio of meat-to-vegetables decreases calories and increases fiber. Some of these suggestions are visually illustrated, which makes the prospect of changing one's eating habits seem more attractive and less punitive.

There are also visual as well as verbal cues to encourage the viewer to practice good portion control. As well as a highlighted yellow box listing portion sizes of a hundred calories or less for fruits and vegetables, there is also an illustration of what this looks like, for visual learners.…