Five years ago, the First Lady proposed a challenge. She asked that children and adults alike put down the sugary sodas, lace up their tennis shoes and start moving. So began Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Initiative, an effort to decrease our country’s ever-increasing childhood obesity rate.
And in those five years, we’ve made strides. Nearly 9 million children participate in after-school sports and physical activities, which gives them up to an hour of exercise per day. Schools and daycares have swapped juices and cookies for fresh fruits and veggies. Even big brands have gotten on board, giving consumers healthier options (Happy Meals now come with apple slices!).
But Michelle O warns that our work is far from done.
“We cannot just pat ourselves on the back and say: ‘Job well done,'” she wrote in an op-ed for CNN, citing that nearly 40 percent of Black children are still obese. “We know that if we get complacent, then we will go right back to where we started.”
She challenged schools to continue serving healthier lunches. She challenged cities to install safe and accessible bike, walking and hiking paths. And she challenged us to keep our kids active.
How are you keeping your kids movin’? Do you sign them up for intramural sports? Do you have a stash of fitness video games (Wii, anyone?), or do you do away with screen time altogether and force them to run around outside? Take our poll, and tell us the methods that you use to keep your kids active and fit.
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