A superhero on a bottle can catch your child’s eye. It can’t tell them whether the drink has a health benefit. Use the two made-up messages below for a quick conversation. The useful distinction is simple: enjoying a character, noticing what a message wants and deciding whether its claim has support are three different things.
Look at what each message asks
The page comes from Healthy Messages and Everyday Choices – Year 1. You can use this single comparison without working through the whole unit.
Before reading panel B, explain that its advertisement and health assertion are deliberately invented. The statement is incorrect: putting a superhero on a label doesn’t make a drink healthy.
Read panel A aloud, then ask, “What does this help a visitor know or do?” Your child might say, “It tells visitors where water is available.” Next ask what panel B wants someone to think or choose. One possible answer is, “It wants people to think the drink is healthy and choose it.” These are prompts for a chat, not answers to copy.
Ask what the picture proves
The worksheet asks whether the superhero picture proves a health benefit. If your child says, “The superhero makes it healthy,” try: “The picture shows a superhero. What does it tell us about the drink itself?”
If they’re unsure, give them the useful reply: “A superhero picture doesn’t tell us what the drink can do.” It doesn’t support the health claim, but it doesn’t prove that the drink is harmful either.
Your child can point, speak, gesture or use their usual communication support. You can talk through the page instead of completing the writing lines.
Try the same sticker twice
You can do the follow-up entirely as a spoken example. Imagine putting the same superhero sticker on two different bottles. Ask, “Would that sticker tell us what was inside either bottle?”
The sticker could look exactly the same while the contents differed. That’s the point: the picture alone can’t settle the claim. A real message may give information and encourage a choice at the same time. Calling something a notice or an advertisement doesn’t, by itself, tell us whether it’s accurate.
Keep real-world checking with an adult
The final printed question asks what a trusted adult could help check. A useful response is, “An adult could help find reliable information supporting what the message says.” Keep any real-world checking there; a Year 1 child doesn’t need to investigate a health claim alone.
This small discussion connects with Years 1–2 HPE work on the purposes of health messages, including advertising and packaging. Asking what supports a claim also fits the health-literacy and critical-inquiry approach in Australian HPE. Parents can stop after this conversation. Teachers who want a structured sequence can explore the wider unit.
One question is enough
You can like the superhero and still ask, “What tells us that claim is true?” Leave it there for now. If a real message raises a question, a trusted adult can help check it.