This past Wednesday I had the tremendous honor of helping our First Lady Michelle Obama with her “healthy kids fair” on the front lawn of the White House! I served her, Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack, and dozens of children from the community a colorful array of fresh fruits and vegetables and challenged the kids to eat the rainbow in produce every day. Besides other delicious healthy snacks there were fun activities like double dutch, hula hooping and a bouncy house. As you have probably seen by now, our First Lady can really hula hoop it up!
It awe-inspiring for me to prep food in the White House kitchen with chefs Cris Comerford and Sam Kass, and to formally meet and be photographed with Michelle Obama in the room next to where Roosevelt had his fireside chats. My husband Thom and daughter Isabella got to come along for the full experience too.
Mrs. Obama organized this day of fun and good food to drive home her commitment to improving the nutrition and fitness habits of our children and encourage schools to take the Healthier US Schools Challenge a program designed inspire schools to provide fruits, vegetables and whole grains along with nutrition and physical education. We have a long way to go, there are lots of things about the system that are broken, but getting schools involved at this grass roots level certainly is a big first step in the right direction. It is so heartening to me to have a leader in the White House who believes in the long term benefits of a healthy lifestyle and who so clearly lives that way herself. I hope to be able to do more to help her in this cause.
