Saturday, March 14, 2015

Dangling the Carrot; Not the Candy Bar

Yesterday I had the honor and privilege to meet with Debra Eschmeyer, the Executive Director of First Lady Michele Obama's Let's Move Campaign in the East Wing of the White House. We met in the same room that FLOTUS has strategy, think tank style meetings and we talked about efforts to continue to feed kids great food. Today I saw a posting on Facebook that,was 180 degrees opposite of that discussion. The posting was of an 8 year old at an indoor soccer arena chowing down a entire roll of starburst, at 8 o'clock in the morning  and it got me thinking.

It's so crazy that the "food" they sell at children sports venues is all crappy junk food. The facilities are designed to "build" athletes and yet they sell candy & soda to fuel up kids with sugar.

As a society we need to teach kids how to build a healthy body and this is a step in the wrong direction.

#SchoolFood has changed for the better and families are eating healthier; farmers markets and health food stores are flourishing but for whatever reason society thinks its ok to fuel kids up with sugar, sugar, sugar all the time. Every holiday now has candy associated with it, kids sports banquets end with a trophy and a bag of candy, little league baseball concessions sell crap, indoor kids soccer sells junk food, school fundraising sells junk food.

We are in the middle of a obesity epidemic in this country, yet it never ends.

Now is the time to change the paradigm and move to a healthier generation, think outside the box and take a stand for what is right for our kids.

We can become a healthier society but it all starts by dangling the carrot and NOT the candy bar!

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