Michelle Obama: 'Let's Move' Initiative Battles Childhood Obesity
Michelle Obama announced her far-reaching, nationwide campaign called "Let's Move" on Tuesday February 9, 2010. She referred to Let’s Move as a "very ambitious" program to end the American plague of childhood obesity in a single generation. Per Mrs. Obama, "We want to eliminate this problem of childhood obesity in a generation. We want to get that done."
This far-reaching, nationwide campaign calls for a myriad initiatives that target what Obama calls four key pillars: Getting parents more informed about nutrition and exercise, improving the quality of food in schools, making healthy foods more affordable and accessible for families, and focusing more on physical education.
If you are not familiar with the statistics on childhood obesity - one in three kids are overweight or obese, and the
I think we all know that there is no separating children’s problems from the problems of the family. Children, in large part, simply reflect the health or sickness of the family, and while our First Lady’s call to end childhood obesity in one generation is the right thing to do it cannot get done until the adults in families throughout
Let us follow our First Lady’s lead to start getting serious about taking charge of our health and doing whatever it takes to deal with obesity in our lives and within our families. To paraphrase a famous quote, as I see, every day of our lives we do one of two things: we either build health in our bodies or we build disease. There is no third option.
Which one are you doing every day – building health or building disease? What examples are we setting for our children?
I encourage you to think about these issues and to try every day of your life to build health for yourself and avoid suffering from preventable disease.
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Comments
Darrell says:
You know what? If your child doesn't even ASK for a pair of rollerskates, a skateboard, a bicycle, or anything like that, you're gonna have a Big Pun on your hands soon! Who doesn't want a Pogo stick? Who didn't believe a bike was THEE ultimate gift? Now every bike is motorized in some way. It's so obvious why your kids are HUGE! Video games all day long. You can't figure this out, you shouldn't have any more kids! LOL!
February 11th, 2010 at 10:40 AM
Oneproudbajan says:
I applaud the First Lady's efforts. I'm not American, I live in Barbados which has one of the world's highest rates of diabetes, heart disease and obesity! I hope that my fellow citizens will watch and learn from the Let's Move initiative
We're a relatively active family. The children have all been involved in competitive sports. Hubby and I try to get in exercise daily, his sport of choice is cycling. I'll either walk or swim (one of the advantages of living near the beach). Our nutrition improved steadily when we realized that it made no sense to train and exercise our butts off, to ruin it with fried food and the like!
I'm thinking that Mrs. Obama's plan to target the children is an excellent one. Today's children are given a whole lot more say in what parents do and buy, than we did. Normally that isn't a good thing, but it could be turned around for the benefit of the whole family.
Let me give an example. My youngest daughter had a teacher last year who instructed the children in her class to bring a fruit or vegetable to school in their lunch boxes. They were also instructed to bring a bottle of water (actually, a reusuable water bottle is on the list of required school supplies)
The rule was that the fruit or vegetable had to be eaten before anything else in the lunch box was touched! Some parents were a bit ticked off, but by and large most of the parents gave in to the "But Mom, did you pack fruit in my lunch. Remember Mrs. X said that we have to bring fruit to school"
I don't know about other families, but my children thought their teachers and coaches knew way more about life than their parents. Teachers' and coaches' instructions were treated like the Gospel. Parents' advice and instructions....not so much!
I have worked at a school too and it has become clear to me that too many parents are completely clueless about nutrition, and its long term implications. Maybe if the kids took the knowledge home, the parents might actually learn something!
February 11th, 2010 at 7:05 AM
Monnie J says:
don't you just love our first lady! she doesn't just talk about it, she is about it! now we just have to get the adults to follow suit! lol~
February 10th, 2010 at 4:34 PM
BJ says:
Thanks my friend. I saw the presentation. She has made me happy.
Bj
February 10th, 2010 at 4:33 PM
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J.J JACKSON says:
I am the same age as our wonderful first lady.As a child,we loved to be outside riding our bikes,playing kickball,rollerskating etc.Ther may have been one or two kids in the neighborhood who were a little chubby,unlike anything we are seeing now!! I wrote "BROKE JACK'S TASTE BUD TANTALIZING MEALS for parents to have fun cooking in a healthy way.My book is fun but serious!!! There isn't anything like it!! Kids don't buy the food parents do!! My book will be available spring 2010!!!
March 13th, 2010 at 12:38 PM