Fighting Childhood Obesity

Last week, Beyoncé Knowles unveiled a new video designed to inspire kids to get up off the couch and get moving.

The dance clip, produced in support of Michelle Obama’s campaign to fight childhood obesity, features Beyoncé leading a cafeteria full of kids in some relatively simple moves, or rather they are steps an uncoordinated and/or flabby person could try and fail at but still burn off many calories in the spirited attempt.

In my Internet travels, I also spotted another blog posting along the same lines referring to a program aimed at children in Maine called “Let’s Go!” that is trying to achieve the same goal as the First Lady. It suggests a “5-2-1-0” guideline for healthier living, calling for, on a daily basis, at least five servings of fruits and vegetables, two hours or less of screen time, at least one hour of exercise, and zero sugary drinks.

I think both of these campaigns are great ideas, but I’m not sure how I can put either of them fully into practice in my own home right now. For one thing, I have enough trouble getting my 3-year-old daughter, Lucy, to eat much of anything, let alone things that are 100 percent healthy, because she is so picky. Some days, I’m satisfied if she has consumed a significant proportion of her daily caloric intake from what is borderline junk food (i.e. Fruit Roll-Ups or Goldfish Crackers chased with low-fat chocolate milk) and called it a meal, just because I got my slender girl to eat something at all.

Secondly, I’m not setting the best example myself, or at least I’m not setting a well-rounded example. I’m working a lot harder to put lean, healthy meals on the table, and getting Lucy to see her parents eat green vegetables even if she herself refuses to try them, but I’m still a snacker. And working full-time and balancing freelance work while taking care of two kids and also trying to keep the house minimally clean means that I’m having trouble making time to exercise.

In that respect, based on my own example, I feel like the best childhood obesity campaign might be one that directly targets working parents who clearly want to do the right thing for their children, but are struggling to put a plan into action. Don’t ask me what strategies such a campaign would be built on, though, unless you have some magical way of building more hours into the day.