Spokane Mayor Mary Verner is trying to get Spokane moving. During a press conference at Bemiss Elementary School today, Verner and regional health officials highlighted programs aimed at preventing childhood obesity and publicized new initiatives to address the childhood obesity epidemic.
Mayor Verner announced that the City of Spokane will join the national Let’s Move! campaign, which was launched by First Lady Michelle Obama on February 9, 2010. Over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled, and today, nearly one in three children in America are overweight or obese. Let’s Move! is working to combat the childhood obesity epidemic through a comprehensive approach with schools, families and communities to help kids be more active, eat better, and get healthy.
Here's more info from the Let's Move! website.
2 comments:
Interesting Mary Verner chose Bemiss, but I do like that she came to northeast Spokane. It is amazing to see the kids in the neighborhood and so many are overweight. When I was young you seldom saw an overweight child in our neighborhood, many did not have enough food for three meals a day, so I guess better nutrition has helped, now to get the kids moving.
My parents said I was real fat until I started walking and lost all the fat real quick.
I'm not sure the reason behind choosing Bemis besides the obvious reasons that it's a lower income school and families in lower income neighborhoods tend to eat less healthy diets simply due to socioeconomic factors. The Health District says that over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled. Tripled! Holy cow! Is it video games? Cable TV? Parents working instead of being home to send their kids outside to play? Sounds like a combination of all of the above, and more. Now is the time to get kids used to walking and riding bikes though, especially to get where they're going, because they tend to stick to what they know as adults. Same with riding public transit. I know there are programs that help people learn how to navigate riding the bus, but it seems like we need something similar to get kids used to using public transit.
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