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First Lady Michelle Obama gardens in Soweto township, in Johannesburg, South Africa. The first lady has planted a garden on the South Lawn of the White House it's the first vegetable garden to be planted there since Eleanor Roosevelt's victory garden.
First Lady Michelle Obama gardens in Soweto township, in Johannesburg, South Africa. The first lady has planted a garden on the South Lawn of the White House it's the first vegetable garden to be planted there since Eleanor Roosevelt's victory garden.
Many first ladies choose a mission, and when Michelle Obama moved into the White House, she decided to take up the cause of combating childhood obesity. It's an epidemic that affects up to one-third of all children in the U.S. It's also a personal issue for the First Lady. A number of years ago, her pediatrician asked her to rethink her daughters' diets.
In February 2010, she launched Let's Move!, an initiative to encourage healthier lifestyles and push for better-quality food in schools and neighborhoods. She also cultivates the White House vegetable garden, which provides fresh produce for formal lunches, State Dinners and Obama family meals. Critics complain Obama's anti-obesity campaign represents the long reach of an overbearing government; supporters applaud her for focusing attention on the issue.
NPR's Neal Conan talks with first lady Michelle Obama about ways to get children to eat healthier, and her new book, American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America.
On how she changed her family's eating habits
"The hard part was trying to get the kids excited about a new diet. I mean, you know, one of the challenges that we face as moms is that today's foods are so high in sodium and sugar in an artificial way that kids' taste buds are really adjusted for that high level of sugar and salt. So when you go back to natural foods, things that aren't processed, it takes them time to adjust.
"... But once we got them involved in the process of clearing out the cabinets, and we explained what was going on, and we spent time with them in farmer's markets, slowly but surely we started to introduce real food to their diets: fresh vegetables, which tend to taste more tasty for kids; fresh juices, which they got adjusted to.
"And slowly they began to embrace it, and that's where the whole notion of planting a garden came from because I found that in my own kids, when they were involved in the process of growing and harvesting their own food, and they were engaged, they actually embraced the idea. And I thought, well, if I didn't have this figured out with all my education and all my exposure, you know, there are probably other parents and families out there who needed help, as well."
See the article here:
First Lady: Nation's Health 'Starts With Our Kids'
