First Lady launches campaign on childhood obesity

First Lady Michelle Obama tackles childhood obesity

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• Today's children need more physical activity
  

The First Lady initiated a campaign on Tuesday that aims to reduce childhood obesity within the next generation.

According to MSNBC, this campaign will promote healthier schools, increase physical activity for kids, improve access to healthy food and provide people with better nutrition information.

The most recent government figures show that almost 20 percent of children ages 6 - 19 are overweight.  Most of these cases could be avoided by simply eliminating a few basic bad habits:  avoid drive through fast food chains, limit consumption of candy and processed foods and remove foods with high-fructose corn syrup as one of the top 5 ingredients.

Once you have eliminated fast food, simple sugars and processed foods, follow these guidelines to start cutting out hundreds of calories a day.

1. Provide plenty of fruits and vegetables at meals
2. Switch to low fat or non-fat dairy products
3. Drink lots of water
4. Eat reasonable portions and avoid super-sized meals
5. Choose lean meats and replace with fish when possible
6. Limit sugar sweetened beverages
7. Limit saturated fat consumption

In addition to healthy eating habits, it’s imperative that children and adolescents increase their daily physical activity.

For more information on how to encourage children to become more active, see ‘Today’s children need more physical activity.’