By Jesse Campbell, Mountain Times
Johnny Nguyen felt the pangs of dealing with childhood obesity whenever it came time to complete a mile run during elementary school fitness tests.
An Appalachian State University student, Johnny Nguyen, has designed a cartoon themed lunch box to help children eat healthier. (Mountain Times)
He couldn’t keep up with his friends — it’s a memory that sticks with him to this day.
When he enrolled in industrial design classes at Appalachian State University, he had an opportunity to help kids overcome the obstacles of being overweight.
With an eye for design, Nguyen set out to design a portion control lunch box to trim down on serving sizes and, hopefully, excess weight.
Although the concept was originally intended to be a final project for his junior year class, Nguyen knew he could further conceptualize the idea.
He continued to work out the kinks with the project and decided the concept would appeal to children more if he incorporated a story angle with the lunch box.
Capitalizing on the entertainment value of cartoons and comics, Nguyen decided to base the design of the boxes on a space base race of robots, sort of like the ones featured in the popular Transformers series, he said.
Dubbed Bentobots, Nguyen said the robot shaped boxes open to reveal easy to clean compartments that are mindful of portion sizes.
Read the full article by Jesse Campbell from Mountain Times.
