First lady, La. program promote healthy living

• Advocate staff report
• Published: Nov 2, 2009

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

Just say go!

First lady Michelle Obama is encouraging American youth to eat right and enjoy a healthy lifestyle of fun through exercise.

Late last month, Obama hosted a healthy kids fair on the South Lawn of the White House and the White House Web site, http://www.whitehouse.gov, records her comments to her guests that day.

“We don’t just want our kids to exercise because we tell them to,” she said. “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.”

Obama didn’t just talk about exercise. She dived in, showing how fun it can be to jump rope, Hula hoop and race.

The day also included a helping of healthy food.

“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,” she said.

In Louisiana, BlueCross Blue Shield of Louisiana and LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center have teamed to spread a similar message through the Louisiana 2 Step program.

The program’s two steps to better health: “eat right and move more.”

Learn more about healthy living on the program’s main Web site as well as one just for kids.

ON THE INTERNET:

http://www.2step4kids.com/