It is a message that will hopefully go straight to the heart and it will all be thanks to a group of talented college students who are helping other young people.

Six students, while on an internship with Deloitte & Touche, ACE and the Bank of Bermuda, conducted a research project on obesity for the Bermuda Heart Foundation.

And the result will be a new campaign called 'Rock the Heart' aimed directly at teenagers aged 14 to 19 to try and reduce the level of obesity among young people.

Statistics from the Department of Health show that one in three teenagers in Bermuda are obese, yet disturbingly results from surveys conducted by the students showed the majority of teenagers did not feel they were at personal risk of heart disease.

Kennette Burgess, spokesperson for the college students, said: "We found this a problem because they felt that being young, they could not be affected, and this is not true."

Deloitte & Touche, ACE and Bank of Bermuda host an internship programme where college students work in various areas of the corporate sector, doing a two-week rotation at each company.

As part of the programme they have to do a community project which involves working with a local charity.

Bermuda Heart Foundation applied because it wanted to implement a campaign for teenagers and was successful in securing the interns' help.

The six interns; Adrian Binns, Kennette Burgess, Ryan Cabral, Logan Davis, Chris Parker and Ashleigh Simons, had seven days to develop a heart health awareness campaign to reach the 14 to 19-year-old age group.

Ms Burgess said the team worked collaboratively on each aspect of the project and presented a full marketing proposal to the Foundation.

She said her team developed two surveys to get information from teenagers, with the surveys being distributed in both the public and private schools.

As well as discovering that the majority of teenagers did not feel they were at personal risk of heart disease they also used the survey to determine where teenagers got their information and what types of events and practices they enjoyed.

The 'Rock the Heart' campaign includes a heart-shaped tattoo done in Cup Match colours which will be launched tomorrow at Harbour Nights.

The intern team also produced a full campaign for "Rock the Heart" which includes radio, web and print ads, events and surveys.

They also suggested a family fun health day with various sporting activities and a morning walk to kick of the day, as a major event.

Kara Smith, Bermuda Heart Foundation's Development Director, said the team's work was "superb and invaluable".

She said the Foundation will adopt all the recommendations in its 2010 plan.

She added: "They came up with a 'Rock the Heart' awareness campaign that included the tattoos in Cup Match colours as a way to connect with that demographic as well as raise our charitable identity.

"The quality of work these students were able to produce in such a short period of time is definitely remarkable.

"Their approach was organic and holistic in the way they executed the task, which ultimately resulted in a top notch product that we are not only able to use but mark as a standard," she said.

"It has been a rare occurrence for me to ask for something and receive exactly what I wanted," said Ms Smith. "But that is what these students were able to achieve and we are very pleased as this report is exactly what we needed."

Ms Smith said: "Their work has enabled the Foundation to gain real insight to the way heart health is considered and approached within this demographic.

"As heart disease is, in most cases preventable, Bermuda Heart Foundation champion prevention as much as possible, thus the youth are crucial when it comes to raising awareness and advocating for heart health.

"If we cultivate a culture of prevention toward heart health then we can begin to stem the tide of heart disease that is currently claiming one in three deaths on the Island."