Any parent who's tried to get a child to eat something nutritious might want Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer in their corner. Their new CD, Bon Appetit! Musical Food Fun, features catchy songs about good eating habits and the importance of exercise despite lifestyles that don't always promote those goals. The Grammy-nominated duo discuss the album with NPR's Bob Edwards.
The song, "Five a Day," for example, urges kids to eat their fruits and vegetables: There's a crunch in my lunch / And I've got a hunch / That I'm eatin' carrots today...
Or "Breakfast Power," reminding them not to skip the first meal of the day: When your body wakes up it's a little slow / You need breakfast power to get on the go...
The songs also try to get kids to think about where their food comes from. The CD includes the classic "Garden Song" (Inch by inch, row by row / Gonna make this garden grow...) Marxer says it's about a garden "where you can plant your seed and watch it grow and reap the harvest."
"Times are different, and we don't live on farms, most of us," Fink says. "We buy our food in stores in packages and don't really think about where it came from, where it grew, how it came to us."
And the singers touch on the importance of staying in shape, in "Hula Hoop" and "Big Strong Muscles."
Fink says she was a child herself when President Kennedy "launched the big fitness campaigns. There were three television stations and you didn't spend your whole day watching them. There were no computers. What you did after school is you got on your bike or you went and played ball or you did something. But your parents weren't worried about you being at the playground by yourself."
Fink and Marxer have been singing and writing children's songs together since 1984. They have performed at thousands of shows in the United States and around the world, and their albums have earned eight Grammy nominations. They also have received awards from the Parents' Choice Foundation, the American Library Association and the Washington Area Music Association.
Though their music is primarily geared to children, the singers attribute much of their success to another part of their audience. "We're clearly aware of the fact that parents are listening to stuff with kids all the time," Fink says.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.