First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign is underway and she celebrated by jumping rope and eating healthy snacks with children.

“The President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition is here to challenge you to join the healthy living movement—through the Department of Health and Human Services, First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move!, America’s Great Outdoors, or one of the many programs across the nation and in your community.”

The council picked Dominique Dawes, 3-Time Olympic Gymnast to be the Co-Chair. Dawes is dedicated to educating others about the importance of physical and emotional health.

Council members and children were at an event at a Washington DC school and led children and council members in a series of fitness and nutrition activities.

8 Tips for being healthy, fit and strong.

1. Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables

2. Choose to eat whole grains

3. Drink water to get the energy to get through your day

4. Choose to bike or walk instead of driving to work

5. Play with your friends at the park instead of turning on the computer after school

6. If you watch TV, do sit ups while watching

7. Plant a garden with your neighbors

8. Eat vegetables for lunch and dinner each day

“It is our goal to make healthy eating and safe play accessible, affordable and attractive for everyone regardless of age, background or ability.”

Visit www.fitness.gov to learn more about the program.

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I’ve been writing about Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative to fight childhood obesity. Rubberecycle supports these efforts and encourages parents to take their kids to the park this summer. There are parks for children of all ages — including a video game park — which I’ll write about in a future post. The idea is to help your children be more active. They’ll sleep better, be happier and more fit.

Here are some ideas to help families make healthy food choices and choose ways to encourage physical activity:

• Launch a city website with information for parents on healthy living.
• Create a healthy food promotional campaign, and offer a “healthy eating” designation to restaurants who offer healthier food and beverages and reasonably-sized portions.
• Form a community coalition tasked with identifying local barriers to healthy living.
• Promote local community organizations that provide access to healthy activities.
• Through public service announcements and community events:
• Serve as a role model in your own community by adopting a healthy lifestyle.
• Encourage parents to become healthy role models for their children.
• Encourage parents to help children get off to a good start by promoting breastfeeding.

As part of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative, cities and towns around the country can join the effort to slim up America’s kids.

Mayors and Elected Officials can become a Let’s Move City or Let’s Move Town.

Here’s what to do – in 4 categories:
1. Help Parents Make Healthy Family Choices: Offer parents tools, support, and information to make healthier choices for their families.

2. Improve the Health of Schools: Promote healthier food in schools

3. Increase Physical Activity Opportunities: Promote physical activity in your schools, city, or town

4. Make Healthy Food Affordable and Accessible: improve the affordability of healthy food

Mayors and elected officials are encouraged to take action in each of the 4 areas.

Rubberecycle enrouages communities to join the effort to get our kids moving. Part of that is taking them to the playground. We’re proud to contribute in a small part by creating safe and accessible playgrounds with a rubber mulch surface like the one found at the White House playground.

More at http://www.letsmove.gov/cities_and_towns.html

Related article:

• Playground Safety a Top Priority (rubberecycle.com)

This information about childhood obesity comes from the Get Moving! web site and is Michelle Obama’s initiative.

The childhood obesity problem
Here are some facts about childhood obesity:

• Over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled

• Nearly 1 in 3 children in America are overweight or obese

• 1/3 of all children born in 2000 or later will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lives

• Other chronic obesity-related health problems include heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, and asthma

• A recent study put the health care costs of obesity-related diseases at $147 billion per year.

• Obesity is now one of the most common reasons people are disqualified for military service.

The Let’s Move! campaign aims to solve the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation. The idea is to come up with common sense, innovative solutions that empower families and communities to make healthy decisions for their kids. One of those is taking the kids to the playground this summer.

Try getting the kids to a playground. When I was little I played ‘kick the can’ almost every night. We also played badminton in the back yard until it was so dark we couldn’t see the birdie anymore.

This web site has some other games you could play: http://www.playgroundfun.org.uk/

The next few posts will have more ways to get moving with your kids and how to encourage your community and schools to join in. Please tell us your favorite playground game.

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Did you know that Michelle Obama has a blog? She does. As part of her effort to fight childhood obesity she launched a blog. She’s bringing it all home with her “South Lawn Series.” It began with the first event On May 25. The First Lady and almost 100 local students were at the White House. She’s planned events this summer to get kids moving. They’ll have sports, games and activities led by local groups to help inspire them.

The cause is important to our country’s future health. “Studies find that about 1 in 5 children becomes overweight or obese by age 6, and that more than half of obese children become overweight before the age of 2. Nearly 6 percent of infants younger than six months are overweight, the report says, up from 3.4 percent between 1980 and 2001,” says  an article about the initiative in Huffington Post.

The First Lady is encouraging kids to get at least 60 minutes of exercise each day. Kids aren’t out playing and running around as much as they used to. Instead they’re sitting at home, watching too much TV and playing computer games. While there are a lot of valid reasons for this, we need to change it.

It’s great to see how innovative playgrounds encourage kids to get outside and move around. There are not only more creative playgrounds, but safer playgrounds and playgrounds that can accommodate kids in wheelchairs and with disabilities.

Mrs. Obama walks the talk too – one of the first tasks when her family moved into the White House was to get a playground installed. It’s fun to have young kids in the White House and the girls enjoy playing on it.

Here’s some trivia that we’re especially proud of – bet you didn’t know that Rubberecycle’s rubber mulch is the playground surface the first family chose for their eco-friendly playground.