Michelle Obama talks about her nationwide campaign to fight childhood obesity called "Let's Move."
Political party preferences aside, I think childhood obesity is a serious concern and am thankful for the media/conversations/awareness this campaign has launched. I look forward to hearing how they intend to achieve these goals - especially from a "top down" approach.
Berkeley has some pretty creative solutions that I am really proud of... such as Alice Waters' Elementary School Edible Garden Project and the Berkeley Ecology Center's plans to help local farmers markets accept food stamps.
What do you think?
(childhood obesity... not if you like Michelle or not :)
2 comments:
I'm glad people are starting to take childhood obesity seriously! I recently read a great article by Time magazine about childhood obesity and one thing it talked about was school lunches. The majority of children in this country are in public school so what better place to get them healthy, nourishing food then there? But is that what the majority of schools are doing? No way! We are feeding them junk on top of more junk. I think Michelle Obama made some great points. Better school lunches, get the children up and moving, and educate not only the children about nutrition (which I think is very important) but also the parents. Organic Gardening Magazine is very big on school gardens, which gets the children actually involved and excited about the food they eat. T.V. and books that are aimed at children are constantly giving off the message that veggies are gross and that sugary, sweet treats are wonderful and if that is how they are eating at home, then why would they think any different? Oh my...I could go on and on! Great post, Nikki!
School lunches can be truly pitiful. When I worked in the schools the only veggie option was lukewarm iceberg lettuce w/ maybe a bit of shredded carrot on top or perhaps some slimy peaches with some stray iceberg strands in there. Yum?
At the same time though, when I was growing up we didn't necessarily have the healthiest lunch options, but we had a lot more time for recess during the day. I had three recesses growing up. Now the older kids get very little recess time.
Liberal/Conservative aside, this is a truly important issue.
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