{"id":243931,"date":"2010-01-28T17:41:42","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T22:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.suntimes.com,2010:\/sweet\/\/25.31562"},"modified":"2010-01-28T21:28:18","modified_gmt":"2010-01-29T02:28:18","slug":"michelle-obama-laying-more-groundwork-to-combat-childhood-obesity-pool-report-transcript","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/243931","title":{"rendered":"Michelle Obama laying more groundwork to combat childhood obesity. Pool report. Transcript"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.suntimes.com\/sweet\/michelle-obesity-obama.JPG\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"michelle-obesity-obama.JPG\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.suntimes.com\/sweet\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/michelle-obesity-obama-thumb-500x998-17198.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"998\" class=\"mt-image-none\" style=\"\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\n<em><br \/>\nChristina Bellantoni, a senior reporter for TalkingPointsMemo.com pool report on First Lady Michelle Obama Jan. 28, 2010 obesity event, followed by transcript of Mrs. Obama remarks.<\/p>\n<p><\/em><br \/>\nNews: Release of a childhood obesity report, some details about FLOTUS&#8217;<br \/>\nupcoming program to combat childhood obesity and discussion of how big a<br \/>\nproblem it is. There were no specific mentions of the health care<br \/>\nlegislation currently in limbo on Capitol Hill but references to<br \/>\nimportance of this issue as it relates to overall costs.<br \/>\nColor: Minimal, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made a funny joke about<br \/>\nbeing a governor.<\/p>\n<p>First Lady Michelle Obama joined administration health officials to<br \/>\nannounce the release of the Surgeon General&#8217;s report about childhood<br \/>\nobesity at the YMCA in Alexandria, Virginia. Speaking were Dr. Regina<br \/>\nBenjamin, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Dr. Judith Palfrey,<br \/>\nPresident of the American Academy of Pediatrics<\/p>\n<p>FLOTUS aide said the event is one more step toward the expected formal<br \/>\nlaunch in a few weeks of a major program aimed at targeting childhood<br \/>\nobesity. The first lady&#8217;s effort will be a new priority in the next few<br \/>\nmonths. It will be a public-private partnership, and today&#8217;s event<br \/>\nshowcases the potential for teamwork to combat the problem, the aide<br \/>\nsaid. (Mrs. Obama has had a host of events that fall into this category,<br \/>\nfrom promotion of the White House Kitchen-Garden to speaking with health<br \/>\ncare officials in the year President Obama has been in office.)<\/p>\n<p>Before the speaking program FLOTUS and the other officials toured a YMCA<br \/>\nplayroom that featured interactive video games that are good for groups<br \/>\n&#8211; bikes set up so kids can race others on a screen, a dancing game, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Michelle Obama said the room (which your pool did not see) represented<br \/>\nthe &#8220;next generation&#8221; and should be encouraged in other places.<br \/>\nChildhood obesity is &#8220;nothing short of a public health crisis&#8221; that is<br \/>\n&#8220;threatening the future of this nation,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s just easier&#8221; to order pizza or go through a fast food<br \/>\ndrive-through, especially in tough economic times, she said.<\/p>\n<p>She touted schools that offer nutritious meals, exercise programs and<br \/>\nthe need to increase these things outside of school as well.<\/p>\n<p>Like she does at many events, the first lady offered a personal story<br \/>\nfrom the Obama family about how they made healthier choices. That<br \/>\nincludes limiting TV time and keeping an eye on portion size. She said<br \/>\nit was &#8220;very minor stuff&#8221; like throwing in apples and water bottles into<br \/>\nSasha and Malia&#8217;s school lunches.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Small changes can lead to big results,&#8221; Obama said.<\/p>\n<p>Obama: &#8220;The approach has to be ambitious &#8230; it&#8217;s got to be something<br \/>\nmeaningful and powerful. &#8230; This won&#8217;t be easy, let&#8217;s begin with that.<br \/>\nThis will not be easy and it won&#8217;t happen overnight.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s going to take all of us, thank God it&#8217;s not going to be solely up<br \/>\nto me,&#8221; Obama said. &#8220;Over generations of children we&#8217;ll need to keep<br \/>\ndoing this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sebeilus introduced the first lady as &#8220;everyone&#8217;s favorite vegetable<br \/>\ngardener.&#8221; Obama later called Sebelius her &#8220;partner in crime.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The audience of about 50 people included local elected officials,<br \/>\nleaders from the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, reps from the YMCA, YWCA<br \/>\nand Childrens&#8217; Defense Fund, HHS, Girls Inc. and the National PTA.<\/p>\n<p>Virginia First Lady Maureen McDonnell, whose husband gave the GOP<br \/>\nrebuttal to President Obama&#8217;s State of the Union last night, greeted the<br \/>\nfirst lady at the event. Alexandria Mayor Bill Eullie and Rep. Jim Moran<br \/>\n(D-VA) also were in attendance.<\/p>\n<p>In her remarks, Sebelius quipped that during the SOTU the night before<br \/>\nthey &#8220;got a lot of exercise&#8221; standing up to applaud so often.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we&#8217;re really serious about turning the corner on this issue we need<br \/>\neveryone to be involved. we need to make this a national crisis and a<br \/>\nnational issue,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Sebelius talked generally about health care costs going up, saying &#8220;the<br \/>\nunhealthier we are as a nation the more our health care costs will<br \/>\ncontinue to rise.&#8221; She said the administration has &#8220;not only a moral<br \/>\nobligation but economic imperative to begin to make a change.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sebelius offered CDC stats: The U.S. spends $1 out of every $10 health<br \/>\ncare dollars on obesity and its complications. Almost twice today than<br \/>\nwhat spent in 1998. That totals $150B a year, more than treating all the<br \/>\ncancers in America, she said.<\/p>\n<p>She said one element is fighting advertising and getting kids away from<br \/>\nthe TV so, &#8220;They stop being bombarded with the ads that are particularly<br \/>\naimed at children on kids&#8217; TV.&#8221; She said a recent study shows that on<br \/>\nthose programs, &#8220;Every 8 minutes you will have a junk food ad. &#8230; And<br \/>\nnow those ads have spread to video games and Web sites. &#8230; That&#8217;s<br \/>\nanother initiative we&#8217;ve got to take very seriously.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sebelius noted that Obama in his SOTU address talked about &#8220;the urgency<br \/>\nof this issue and nominated [Michelle Obama] to lead a national movement<br \/>\nto address it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>FLOTUS joked about President Obama&#8217;s reference to her last night, saying<br \/>\nshe was embarrassed and was wondering &#8220;Do I wave?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For those who are interested, FLOTUS wore a black pinstriped pantsuit,<br \/>\nwith a high-necked, ruffled white blouse and a wide red belt. Her hair<br \/>\nwas down and straight.<\/p>\n<p>Obama recognized Mrs. McDonnell, saying that &#8220;We are going to have a<br \/>\ngreat time working together&#8221; and she is &#8220;counting on her&#8221; to help as a<br \/>\npartner across the Potomac River. She added, &#8220;See you in a month at the<br \/>\ngovernors gala, so be ready to dance.&#8221; The audience laughed and<br \/>\nMcDonnell said she and the governor are &#8220;practicing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sebelius, the former governor of Kansas, joked with Mrs. McDonnell that<br \/>\nher own husband &#8220;still regrets&#8221; leaving the &#8220;assisted living&#8221; that is a<br \/>\ngovernor&#8217;s mansion by coming to Washington to serve in the Obama<br \/>\nadministration.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re still trying to sort that out,&#8221; Sebelius said, and the crowd<br \/>\nlaughed.<\/p>\n<p>(Later, Obama addressed the joke by saying to Sebelius: &#8220;We&#8217;re glad you<br \/>\nmoved out of assisted living &#8230; you can come over for dinner.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>YMCA president and CEO Neil Nicoll began the event by talking about<br \/>\nthings community partners can do to help with children&#8217;s health. &#8220;There<br \/>\n&#8216;s no better way to get children moving than by putting a playground in<br \/>\nfront yard. We need to make the healthy choice the easy choice,&#8221; he<br \/>\nsaid.<\/p>\n<p>Surgeon General Regina Benjamin talked about the &#8220;sobering&#8221; trends in<br \/>\nchildhood obesity and detailed her report offering a &#8220;Vision for a<br \/>\nhealthy and fit nation.&#8221; She said fitness and healthy eating should be<br \/>\nfun and enjoyable.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Healthy foods should be affordable and accessible to all Americans,&#8221;<br \/>\nshe said.<\/p>\n<p>She also touted breast feeding and employer wellness programs. The<br \/>\nreport should be posted here today:<br \/>\nhttp:\/\/www.surgeongeneral.gov\/index.html.<br \/>\n<http:\/\/www.surgeongeneral.gov\/index.html>  I have a paper copy if<br \/>\nanyone wants it.<\/p>\n<p>Benjamin said weight and BMI scores are very important but the &#8220;total<br \/>\npicture is much much bigger.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People want to live long and to live well,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Sebelius also lauded YMCA&#8217;s playroom next door: &#8220;I can&#8217;t imagine any<br \/>\nchild not wanting to go into the room next door and hang out. I want to<br \/>\nhang out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Full remarks of both Sebelius and Benjamin can be found here later:<br \/>\nhttp:\/\/www.hhs.gov\/<\/p>\n<p>Palfrey said there has been an &#8220;alarming increase&#8221; in the numbers of<br \/>\nkids who are obese, and outlined the problems that often come<br \/>\nhand-in-hand with obesity: asthma, diabetes, even depression.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It does not have to be that way,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>The key is healthy nutrition and physical activity of at least 60<br \/>\nminutes a day, which also improves a child&#8217;s ability to learn, she said.<\/p>\n<p>She talked about a program for kids and parents to &#8220;Jump around like<br \/>\ncroaking frogs&#8221; and got some laughs. She said limiting &#8220;screen time&#8221; of<br \/>\ncomputers and televisions to two hours a day will help.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re working hard to prevent obesity before it ever starts,&#8221; Palfrey<br \/>\nsaid. &#8220;No single solution is going to work for everyone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There were cheers for FLOTUS as motorcade arrived. Event got started<br \/>\njust after 1 p.m. FLOTUS concluded her remarks at 1:55 pm.<\/p>\n<p>There will be a White House transcript of FLOTUS remarks only.<\/p>\n<p>From the earlier White House advisory:<br \/>\nDr. Regina Benjamin, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Dr. Judith<br \/>\nPalfrey, President of the American Academy of Pediatrics, will join<br \/>\nFirst Lady Michelle Obama to discuss the release of a paper by the<br \/>\nSurgeon General on the public health challenge posed by the rise in<br \/>\nobesity.   The event will highlight the troubling health implications of<br \/>\ncurrent obesity rates, particularly among children, and the importance<br \/>\nof involving parents, health care providers, schools, and local<br \/>\ncommunities in finding comprehensive solutions.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em><br \/>\nBELOW, FROM THE WHITE HOUSE<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>THE WHITE HOUSE<\/p>\n<p>Office of the First Lady<br \/>\n___________________________________________________________<br \/>\nFor Immediate Release                      January 28, 2010<\/p>\n<p>REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADY<br \/>\nAT EVENT ON SURGEON GENERAL&#8217;S REPORT<\/p>\n<p>YMCA of Alexandria<br \/>\nAlexandria, Virginia<\/p>\n<p>1:36 P.M. EST<\/p>\n<p>MRS. OBAMA:  As you know, from last night, I get embarrassed when people<br \/>\nstand up and clap for me.  (Laughter.)  I don&#8217;t really know what to do.<br \/>\n(Laughter.)  Do I wave, do I &#8212; it&#8217;s like, please, just sit down,<br \/>\neveryone.  (Laughter.)<\/p>\n<p>     Good afternoon.  I&#8217;m thrilled to be here on the floor.  (Laughter.)<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s a great floor.  It&#8217;s kind of a warm floor, but it&#8217;s a good floor.<\/p>\n<p>     Let me begin by thanking the new First Lady in the room, Maureen<br \/>\nMcDonnell.  We are going to have a great time working together.  She is<br \/>\nalready very engaged and supportive of these initiatives.  And since<br \/>\nshe&#8217;s so close I am counting on her to work alongside on some of these<br \/>\nissues.  We&#8217;re going to see you in a month at the governors gala,<br \/>\nwhatever they call it, so be ready to dance.  (Laughter.)  And welcome<br \/>\naboard.<\/p>\n<p>MRS. McDONNELL:  (Inaudible) &#8212; practice.<\/p>\n<p>MRS. OBAMA:  A little practice, absolutely.<\/p>\n<p>Congressman Moran, again I want to thank you for all your work in this<br \/>\narea.  I look forward to working with you.  Our staffs are already<br \/>\ntalking about some things that you&#8217;ve been working on for a very long<br \/>\ntime, so we&#8217;re grateful for your leadership and concern and focus.<\/p>\n<p>Mayor Euille, again you have been a host to me in your great city, and<br \/>\nyou&#8217;ve done wonderful work in this area.  I had a terrific time<br \/>\naddressing the National Conference of Mayors, and I got a very good<br \/>\nresponse from your colleagues.  I know that the mayors in this country<br \/>\nstand ready to work on this issue.  They are seeing the effects of what<br \/>\neveryone on this floor has talked about, in terms of childhood obesity,<br \/>\nand they&#8217;re ready to make some changes.<\/p>\n<p>Also, Dr. Palfrey, it is an honor for us to have you with us.  As I&#8217;ve<br \/>\nshared before, it was through our relationship with our pediatrician<br \/>\nthat we even began as a family to start thinking about these issues.<br \/>\nAnd it&#8217;s our pediatricians and our medical community that are going to<br \/>\nwork side by side with families throughout the country.  So we&#8217;re<br \/>\ngrateful for your support.  I know that this is not a new issue for you,<br \/>\nand I hope that our attention to it makes your job a little bit easier.<\/p>\n<p>I also want to thank all the folks at the Y for all you&#8217;re doing &#8212; Neil<br \/>\nNicoll, for your work as the national leader.  But I know you know as a<br \/>\nnational leader the real work happens on the ground at these fine<br \/>\nfacilities all throughout the country.  The Y has been a leader in<br \/>\nensuring that families and communities all over this country have access<br \/>\nto places to play.  Your mobile physical unit, your PhD unit, that came<br \/>\nto the South Lawn helped me debut my hula-hooping skills.  (Laughter.) <\/p>\n<p>But I think the Ys are showing that they are thinking towards the next<br \/>\nstage, you know.  The room that we were in is the next generation of<br \/>\nwhat Ys can be.  The mobile unit is something that I didn&#8217;t grow up<br \/>\nwith, but you&#8217;re keeping up with the changes in cultures and communities<br \/>\nin a way that is going to make a huge impact to the work that we have to<br \/>\ndo in our nation.<\/p>\n<p>And finally I want to thank my buddy in crime, Secretary Sebelius, for<br \/>\nher tremendous leadership and her tremendous friendship.  We&#8217;re glad<br \/>\nthat you moved out of assisted living. (Laughter.)  I know it&#8217;s hard &#8212;<br \/>\nI know, I know, I&#8217;ll work on him.  (Laughter.)  But you can come over<br \/>\nfor dinner or something.  (Laughter.)  From your work with the CDC to<br \/>\nthe FDA, the Department of Health and Human Services is clearly at the<br \/>\nforefront of addressing some of our greatest health issues, and it&#8217;s<br \/>\ngoing to take their continued commitment.  These grants that are coming<br \/>\nout, we&#8217;ve been working with your department in getting them done.  Your<br \/>\nstaff has been tremendous in moving very quickly on getting that money<br \/>\nout, and I&#8217;m anxious to see what all that hard work leads to.  So we are<br \/>\ngrateful not just to you but all of the thousands of people in your<br \/>\nagency who make us all look very good.<\/p>\n<p>And finally I want to commend our new Surgeon General Dr. Benjamin who I<br \/>\nfinally got to meet.  (Laughter.)  Three months on the job and we&#8217;re<br \/>\nalready making you crazy, right?  (Laughter.)  But you&#8217;re doing a<br \/>\nterrific job just jumping right in.  The report is not only timely but<br \/>\nit&#8217;s right on point.  And your perspective, your new way of looking at<br \/>\nthis issue, is refreshing, and again it&#8217;s right on point.  It&#8217;s<br \/>\npresenting both the dangers of inaction, and a vision for health for<br \/>\nthis country.  It&#8217;s an incredible step in a long journey that we&#8217;ll have<br \/>\nto take. So we want to thank you for your important work.<\/p>\n<p>So as we&#8217;ve seen, the surge in obesity in this country is nothing short<br \/>\nof a public health crisis, and it&#8217;s threatening our children, it&#8217;s<br \/>\nthreatening our families, and more importantly it&#8217;s threatening the<br \/>\nfuture of this nation.  Higher rates of obesity are directly linked, as<br \/>\nyou&#8217;ve heard, to higher rates of chronic illnesses like heart disease<br \/>\nand cancer and diabetes.  Even though type 2 diabetes is rare among<br \/>\nyoung people, more than three quarters of those who have it are obese.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the health consequences are so severe that as the Secretary<br \/>\nsaid, medical experts have warned that our children are on track to be<br \/>\nless healthy than we are.  And there&#8217;s never been a generation of young<br \/>\npeople who are on track to be healthier than their parents &#8212; or less<br \/>\nhealthy than their parents.<\/p>\n<p>And truly, if we&#8217;re really honest with ourselves, it&#8217;s not hard to<br \/>\nunderstand how this happens.  I&#8217;ve tried to track this through my own<br \/>\nlife. <\/p>\n<p>In some cases, it&#8217;s access.  Parents have told me &#8212; I&#8217;ve seen it myself<br \/>\n&#8212; that they would love nothing more than to feed their kids more<br \/>\nhealthy foods, but if you don&#8217;t live anywhere near a place that sells<br \/>\nfresh produce, it&#8217;s very hard to accomplish that goal. <\/p>\n<p>In other cases, the issue is just convenience.  At the end of a long day<br \/>\n&#8212; and more and more families are experiencing these long days with two<br \/>\nparents working and busy schedules &#8212; you just get home and you&#8217;re tired<br \/>\nand you pick up the phone and you order a pizza, or you go to that<br \/>\ndrive-thru.  It&#8217;s just easier.  Our modern-day life makes it very<br \/>\ndifficult for us to sit down and prepare that meal.<\/p>\n<p>And a lot of times it&#8217;s affordability.  In these tough economic times,<br \/>\nbuying healthy foods unfortunately feels like a luxury for too many<br \/>\nfamilies.  They just can&#8217;t afford it.  We&#8217;ve seen stories, we&#8217;ve heard<br \/>\nstories, of people who know that buying that large gallon of juice is<br \/>\ncheaper than buying a gallon of milk.  They can&#8217;t afford to make<br \/>\ndifferent choices.<\/p>\n<p>And then at schools and in our communities, oftentimes it&#8217;s budget cuts<br \/>\nthat make it more difficult.  Recess and PE are gone for many kids in<br \/>\ncommunities all across this country.  Parks and playgrounds and<br \/>\nafter-school sports are few and far between in too many neighborhoods.<\/p>\n<p>And for most people, the cause is really a combination of all of these<br \/>\nthings.  It&#8217;s no one particular thing.  It&#8217;s everything cobbled<br \/>\ntogether. <\/p>\n<p>And let&#8217;s face it:  There are really just too many pressures on parents<br \/>\ntoday.<\/p>\n<p>And I understand those pressures.  I talk about this all the time.  It&#8217;s<br \/>\neasy to live healthy when you live in the White House and you have staff<br \/>\nand people who are cooking for you and making sure that it&#8217;s balanced<br \/>\nand colorful, because I had a hard time doing it before I lived in the<br \/>\nWhite House, and that wasn&#8217;t so long ago.  Barack and I were like any<br \/>\nworking couple.  I was a working mom with a husband that was busy, so<br \/>\nmany times I was the one balancing that load and wrestling with many of<br \/>\nthose challenges.  And there were plenty of times, I tell you, that<br \/>\nyou&#8217;d come home tired, you don&#8217;t want to hear the kids fuss, and popping<br \/>\nsomething in the microwave or picking up a burger was just heaven.  It<br \/>\nwas a Godsend. <\/p>\n<p>But we were fortunate enough to have a pediatrician, as I&#8217;ve mentioned,<br \/>\nthat kind of waved the red flag for me, as a mother, and basically<br \/>\ncautioned me that I had to take a look at my own children&#8217;s BMI.  Now,<br \/>\nwe went to our pediatrician all the time.  I thought my kids were<br \/>\nperfect &#8212; they are and always will be &#8212; (laughter) &#8212; but he warned<br \/>\nthat he was concerned that something was getting off balance, because<br \/>\nfortunately he was a pediatrician that worked predominantly in an<br \/>\nAfrican American urban community, and he knew these trends existed, and<br \/>\nhe was watching very closely in his client population, his patient<br \/>\npopulation. <\/p>\n<p>So again, in my eyes, my children were perfect.  I didn&#8217;t see the<br \/>\nchanges.  And that&#8217;s also part of the problem, or part of the challenge.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s often hard to see changes in your own kids when you&#8217;re living with<br \/>\nthem day in and day out.  As parents, we all know and will readily<br \/>\nacknowledge broadly that kids in general &#8212; we will say we know they<br \/>\ndon&#8217;t eat right &#8212; right? &#8212; and we know they don&#8217;t get as much exercise<br \/>\nas they should, generally.  But we often simply don&#8217;t realize that those<br \/>\nkids are our kids, and our kids could be in danger of becoming obese.<br \/>\nWe always think that only happens to someone else&#8217;s kid &#8212; and I was in<br \/>\nthat position.  We all want desperately to make the best choices for our<br \/>\nkids, but in this climate it&#8217;s hard to know what&#8217;s the right thing to do<br \/>\nanymore. <\/p>\n<p>So even though I wasn&#8217;t exactly sure at that time what I was supposed to<br \/>\ndo with this information about my children&#8217;s BMI, I knew that I had to<br \/>\ndo something; that I had to lead our family to a different way.<\/p>\n<p>But the beauty was that for me over the course of a few months we<br \/>\nstarted making really minor changes.  And I share this story because the<br \/>\nchanges were so minor. <\/p>\n<p>We did things like, you know, limit TV time.  My kids were already<br \/>\nfairly active, but, you know, we cut TV time out during the week, and<br \/>\nthat helped increase activity, because they were just running up and<br \/>\ndown the stairs annoying me more.  (Laughter.) <\/p>\n<p>We paid more attention to portion size.  Didn&#8217;t make a big deal out of<br \/>\nit, but just sort of said, listen to when you&#8217;re hungry, and when you&#8217;re<br \/>\nfull, stop. <\/p>\n<p>We reduced our intake of sugary drinks and instead encouraged our kids<br \/>\nto drink more water.  I just put water bottles in the lunch during the<br \/>\nweek, or we had low-fat milk.  Again, didn&#8217;t make a big deal out of it<br \/>\n&#8212; just made the change. <\/p>\n<p>We put more fruits and vegetables in our diets, again, trying to make<br \/>\nfor a colorful palate, but you&#8217;d slip some grapes in at breakfast time,<br \/>\nand throw in an apple at lunch, and pester them about whether they<br \/>\nactually ate the apple.  (Laughter.)  And then you try to balance it out<br \/>\nwith something at dinner time. <\/p>\n<p>I mean, it was really very minor stuff.  But these small changes<br \/>\nresulted in some really significant improvements.  And I didn&#8217;t know it<br \/>\nwould.  It was so significant that the next time we visited our<br \/>\npediatrician, he was amazed.  He looked over the girls&#8217; charts and he<br \/>\nsaid, &#8220;What on Earth are you doing?&#8221;  And I said, &#8220;Really, not much, not<br \/>\nmuch.&#8221;  And that&#8217;s the good news that we want to share with families,<br \/>\nparticularly for kids:  Small changes can lead to big results.  They&#8217;re<br \/>\nnot destined to this fate, and they&#8217;re not really in control what goes<br \/>\ninto their mouths, usually.<\/p>\n<p>So we know what has led to the obesity epidemic, you know.  We know<br \/>\ninside &#8212; I mean, we&#8217;re still learning &#8212; but we kind of know.  And we<br \/>\nknow what we need to do to solve it.  We just have to make the<br \/>\ncommitment to do it.  We really &#8212; each and every one of us needs to<br \/>\nmake that commitment.  We need to provide parents with better<br \/>\nnutritional information so that they can make better choices.  We need<br \/>\nto give our kids healthier options at school, where many kids are<br \/>\ngetting most of their meals.  We need to make sure they&#8217;re spending less<br \/>\ntime in front of the TV and playing videogames, and more time exercising<br \/>\nand having fun and doing the work of children, which is play. <\/p>\n<p>But we also know that the solution can&#8217;t come from government alone.<br \/>\nThat&#8217;s something that we just have to remind ourselves.  And for many,<br \/>\nthat&#8217;s a great relief.  Everyone has to be willing to do their part to<br \/>\nsolve this problem, and everyone has to work together to turn this<br \/>\npattern around.<\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s exactly what we hope to do through an administration-wide<br \/>\ninitiative on child obesity that I&#8217;m going to be launching in the next<br \/>\ncouple of weeks, along with a number of important partners. <\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re going to be bringing the federal government together, those<br \/>\nresources in partnerships with business, non-profit and the foundation<br \/>\ncommunities, all of whom are thrilled to be a part of this endeavor.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s just been refreshing to see so many people recognizing that this is<br \/>\nthe time to step up and make some changes.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re going to do a number of things &#8212; again, some of them small<br \/>\nthings.  We want to create what we&#8217;re calling more healthy schools.  And<br \/>\nthese are schools that are offering more nutritious meal options during<br \/>\nthe day. They&#8217;re providing nutritional information to children as part<br \/>\nof the curriculum, and they&#8217;re ensuring that children are getting the<br \/>\nincreased exercise that we know that they need. <\/p>\n<p>But we also have to focus on increasing the amount of exercise outside<br \/>\nof school, and no place &#8212; like the Y knows that we need to make these<br \/>\nchanges. <\/p>\n<p>We need to make healthy food options more affordable and accessible.<br \/>\nAnd that&#8217;s going to be probably one of the toughest things that we need<br \/>\nto do.  And we need to do this in all communities:  urban, rural,<br \/>\neverywhere.  People have to have the information, they have to have<br \/>\naccess in order to make healthy choices.  There is nothing more<br \/>\nfrustrating that will frustrate a parent more than to say that you&#8217;ve<br \/>\ngot to buy more fruits and vegetables &#8212; but to still see the cost out<br \/>\nof kilter and see those goals out of reach.<\/p>\n<p>So these are just some of the things that we hope to do through this<br \/>\ninitiative. But what we know is that we have to be ambitious; that the<br \/>\napproach has to be ambitious.  It can&#8217;t just be lockstep.  It&#8217;s got to<br \/>\nbe something meaningful and powerful. <\/p>\n<p>And the other thing that I will say &#8212; and say again and again and again<br \/>\n&#8212; this won&#8217;t be easy.  So let&#8217;s begin with that.  (Laughter.)  This<br \/>\nwill not be easy and it won&#8217;t happen overnight.  And it won&#8217;t happen<br \/>\nsimply because the First Lady has made it her priority.  That in and of<br \/>\nitself is not going to be enough.  It&#8217;s going to take all of us.  Thank<br \/>\nGod it&#8217;s not going to be solely up to me.  (Laughter.)  But it&#8217;s going<br \/>\nto take all of us &#8212; parents, schools, communities &#8212; working together<br \/>\nfor a very long time, over a sustained period of time.  Over generations<br \/>\nof children will need to keep doing this.<\/p>\n<p>But I have every confidence, based on the level of energy that I&#8217;ve<br \/>\nseen, based on the willingness of people to deal with this issue across<br \/>\nparty lines, the willingness of the business community to be a part of<br \/>\nthe solution.  Every sign that we&#8217;ve seen over the course of moving to<br \/>\nthis rollout has been nothing but positive.<\/p>\n<p>And of course parents are ready and willing.  We all want to make the<br \/>\nbest choices for our children.  We just need to know how.  And if we<br \/>\ncontinue to do that, if we work with our physicians, if we work with our<br \/>\nSurgeon General, if we&#8217;ve got the government, the federal government,<br \/>\nworking together, businesses ready to make the sacrifices, then we can<br \/>\ntackle this problem.  And we can do something really important for our<br \/>\nkids.  We can hand them the future that we know they&#8217;re going to need to<br \/>\nbe successful.<\/p>\n<p>\nSo I am excited.  And I look forward to working with all of you over the<br \/>\nnext years to make this not just a dream but to make this movement a<br \/>\nreality.<\/p>\n<p>So thank you all for the work that you&#8217;ve done so far.  And we have a<br \/>\nlot more work to do.  So thank you so much.  (Applause.)<\/p>\n<p>                     END              1:54 P.M. EST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christina Bellantoni, a senior reporter for TalkingPointsMemo.com pool report on First Lady Michelle Obama Jan. 28, 2010 obesity event, followed by transcript of Mrs. Obama remarks. News: Release of a childhood obesity report, some details about FLOTUS&#8217; upcoming program to combat childhood obesity and discussion of how big a problem it is. There were no [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4220,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4220"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}