Serving Nutrition on Red Planet

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Byline: Joseph Szadkowski, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

In a world of ultraviolent video games, where dexterity of the thumb and index finger is infinitely more important than the flexing of the cerebrum, there must be a place for children and their parents to interact and actually learn something from that overpriced multimedia computer/gaming system. Take a deep breath and enter the ROMper Room, where learning is a four-letter word - cool.

Tweens and older children learn healthy eating habits and nutrition skills while trying to set up a colony on Mars in the real-time strategy adventure Hungry Red Planet.

District-based Health Media Lab has teamed up with the National Institutes of Health to offer an excellent simulation that will remind video gamers of a watered-down version of Microsoft's Age of Empires gaming franchise as they dabble in math, science and basic economics.

The story begins as the overcrowded planet Earth has reached a critical point of food shortages. Luckily, a comet smacks into Mars and turns its …