“font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;”>Just as our kids soak up all the bad stuff – all the advertisements and the peer pressure – we know they soak up the good stuff as well. I see it every year when we harvest our White House garden and I watch kids actually getting excited about kale. I watch them clamor to try vegetables they’ve never heard of simply because they planted those vegetables themselves. I see it in the children I meet as I travel around the country.
“font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”> Like the little boy I met last November in Newark. His teacher did a unit on healthy eating. And that afternoon, he went straight home and insisted that his mother bake, rather than fry, the fish she was cooking for dinner. I see it in the letters I get from young people who proudly tell me what they’re doing to eat better and stay active. One little girl told me that after watching a public service announcement for Let’s Move! on TV, she and her friend put down the junk food they were eating and decided to go for a bike ride instead. And when our kids get engaged like this, when they start taking initiative, and changing their habits, that won’t just affect their generation. I think Shemeka Hamlin-Palmer, a mom from Jackson, Mississippi, put it best when she said, “I want my son to have a long and healthy life. Therefore, I need to teach him healthy ways of living and he’ll be able to teach his kids the same thing.” So make no mistake about it, we’re not just doing this for our children, we’re doing it for our grandchildren and for their children too. That’s what we’ve always done in this country, we have struggled and sacrificed to leave something better for future generations. We’ve worked to give them opportunities that we never dreamed of for ourselves. And ultimately, that’s what we’re aiming to do with Let’s Move! That’s what the momentum we’re seeing all across the country is really about. And today, one year later, Let’s Move! is far more than just a campaign. It is so much more than just a slogan. It’s a nationwide movement, a movement to give our kids everything they need – all the energy, strength and opportunities they need to fulfill every last bit of their potential and achieve every last one of their dreams. As parents, we want nothing less for our kids. And as Americans, we want nothing less for this country. So let’s keep working. Let’s keep moving. And let’s keep doing everything we can to give our kids the bright futures they deserve. Edited from
“mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;”>remarks made February 9 in Alpharetta, Ga. This concludes the speech, which we have serialized. “font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;”>
