Posted by Audiegrl
WhiteHouse.gov—Yesterday, the First Lady held the first ever Healthy Kids Fair on the White House South Lawn—a fun event created to teach parents and children the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
All afternoon, the kids took turns jump roping, hula hooping, and learning to concoct nutritious snacks and lunches. As the First Lady explained, the recipes — such as Sweet and Zesty Popcorn and Baked Sliced Apples — are easy to make and developed with today’s busy family in mind:
“We want our children to eat right, not just because it’s the right thing to do but because quite frankly healthy good food tastes good and we want them to experience that. We don’t just want our kids to exercise because we tell them to. We want them to exercise because it’s fun and they enjoy it. And we want them to learn now how to lead good, healthy lifestyles so that they’re not struggling to figure out how to do that when they’re older.
But as a parent, and I know all of you here today, we know that sometimes doing all that is easier said than done, because we all care but it is becoming so increasingly difficult to provide all that for our kids. And you all know that better than anyone here, as parents. We’re all pulled in a million different directions, working hard, working long hours, trying to do everything, be perfect parents. We love you guys so much we just want everything for you.”
As the First Lady reminded her guests, one of every three children in the United States is overweight or obese—but if we take responsibility for our health, this preventable problem will be a thing of the past.
One of the things I loved about the First Ladies speech was when she said, “my mother was also very clear in our household that you ate what she fixed“. You guys don’t know how many times I went to bed without dinner when my Mom fixed cabbage or liver. But the main enemy was ‘peas‘, they were just too squishy for my tastes. One fateful night I decided that if I just scraped the peas off my plate, and placed the plate on top of them, my Mom would think that I ate the peas. Well, I’m sure you can guess how well that turned out. 😉
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