Today First Lady Michelle Obama took the lead in the effort to reduce childhood obesity by launching a national campaign that strives to strike a balance among exercise, nutrition and better access to healthy food.
What is interesting about this latest campaign is the apparent absence of a heavy reliance on metrics and instead a focus on helping families make healthier choices about what they eat, according to media coverage.
One of the “Let’s Move” campaign’s most dramatic ideas is tax breaks for grocery stores that operate in underserved areas, the Associated Press reports, via MSNBC.com. The Obama administration wants to eliminate these “food deserts” during the next five years, according to Let’s Move.
More than 23 million Americans, including 6.5 million children, live in urban and rural neighborhoods without adequate access to a supermarket. – Let’s Move website.
Michelle Obama appears determined to create a more realistic plan to lower childhood obesity rates.
“The question is how do we help people balance that out so that they're not facing life-threatening, preventable illnesses, but they're enjoying their food, they're eating their vegetables, they're doing their running and walking and playing and still have time to get a good, fun meal in every once in a while," Michelle Obama told ABC News, via MSNBC.com.
One day after releasing research on the importance of sleep, family dinners and television limits in fighting childhood obesity, the American Academy of Pediatrics joined the first lady’s fight.
“We face a medical and moral imperative to rescue our children’s health,” AAP president Dr. Judith Palfrey said in a statement. “Over the past twenty years, our nation has seen an alarming rise in the number of our children who are overweight and obese. It will take a concerted effort and thoughtful collaboration to help create healthier communities for children.”
Further reading:
Dancing for quality early education: MomsRising created this short video for people who missed the dance party for early learning with Caspar Babypants last week in Olympia.