The campaign to combat obesity – particularly among children – gained a prominent advocate when First Lady Michelle Obama unveiled her “Let’s Move” campaign that she hopes will sound the alarm of what has become an epidemic among the nation’s populace and will address what needs to be done about it, a theme we have been promoting in our blogs over the past year.
Drawing on her own experiences as a working mom with two young daughters, she spoke in a recent interview about struggling to juggle office hours, school pickups and extracurricular activities and often being too tired to make dinner at the end of the day. She acknowledged she did what was easy: ordering takeout or going to the drive-through.
She thought her girls were eating reasonably well until her pediatrician in Chicago told her he didn’t like the weight fluctuations he was seeing. “I was shocked because my kids looked perfectly fine to me. It was a wake-up call, but like many parents, I didn’t know what to do. I realized I had to become more aware of the importance of healthful food choices and exercise.”
The stated goal of the campaign is to eliminate childhood obesity in a generation. She admits it is an ambitious goal, “but we don’t have time to wait. We’ve got to stop citing statistics and wringing our hands and feeling guilty. We’ve got to get going on this issue.”
I couldn’t agree more. So “Let’s Move!” I’ll be discussing more details of the First Lady’s campaign in subsequent blogs.
~Wid
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
The Grand Canyon State Games is a multi-sport Olympic Festival providing a showcase for the talents and aspirations for Arizona and America's youth regardless of age or ability and to share many of the great attributes of our state. In fact we have had a 3 year old come down the mountain in our Winter skiing event and a 99 year old gentleman throw the javelin in our Track & Field event. We truly have something for everyone.
