Michelle Obama on Her Hula-Hooping, Trying to Get Kids Moving
Lynn Sweet
Correspondent
Posted:
11/19/09
When First Lady Michelle Obama threw a healthy eating and exercise event at the White House last month, her varsity hula-hooping became the iconic picture and video of the event, with her double-Dutch jumping rope a close second. Very cool for Obama watchers, but the attention on the first lady running barefoot across the South Lawn of the White House may have distracted from the messaging goal of the event: reducing childhood obesity. It wasn't supposed to be about her. Mrs. Obama, trekking across the Potomac to the suburb of Alexandria, Va., on Wednesday, lamented all the hoopla over her hula-hooping when she helmed a roundtable with educators at the Hollin Meadows School to discuss programs to improve fitness and nutrition.
She also checked out the elementary school's vegetable garden, and told the kids about her garden at the White House. Mrs. Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who is overseeing the USDA's Healthier Schools Challenge, also handed out bananas and other fruits for a snack.
At the roundtable, she told the teachers and principals about the Oct. 22 fitness fair at the White House, where she hosted kids and their parents to learn about "cost effective" and "easy" ways to stay fit.
"And we had a little fun, too -- I hula-hooped -- probably got a little too much attention from the hula hooping, but the goal was really engaging families and kids in the whole area of fitness."
Mrs. Obama's visit was part of her stepped-up effort to learn what programs and best practices are working as more schools take on the "Healthier Schools Challenge."
After that hula-hooping health fair, "I made a commitment that if more schools got on board that I would invest in visiting those schools, learning more from them, seeing the kids," she explained. "And this is really the first stop on that promise. And my hope is that we'll be visiting more and more schools and there will be more and more schools that figure out how to make that happen."
Her statement seemed to suggest that she would be take her healthy-schools visits to other states. If so, then that topic will join her mentoring program for girls as the themes of road trips, foreshadowing what her second year as first lady (the Jan. 20 anniversary is not far off) might emphasize.
Hollin Meadows is a school with a diverse student body -- white, African-American and Hispanic -- with about half of students living in poverty. Principal Jon Gates told Mrs. Obama that the teachers visit every child's home at the start of the school year, and described how the school day begins with a "morning meeting" where the kids engage in "low-risk, fun activity."
On the obesity front, the school increased recess from 20 minutes each day to 30, and keeping kids out of recess can't be used as punishment. "Recess is as important as reading and math and science and social studies," assistant principal Jean Consolla said.
As the roundtable was wrapping up, educator Jeffrey Grant of the Walker Jones Education Campus in Washington was telling Mrs. Obama about all the athletic activities during recess his school offers and how he is outside every day playing kickball and jumping rope in order to be a model for the children.
Said Mrs. Obama, "Have you hula-hooped yet?
Replied Grant, "They made me hula-hoop. And I thank you for that."