First Lady talks up exercise program in Benton Harbor

As Michelle Obama travels around the country promoting her “Let’s Move” initiative to fight childhood obesity, a program in Benton Harbor often comes up as a good example of how to get kids moving.

She explained that last February, “Let’s Move” launched with a goal  of solving the problem of childhood obesity so that kids born today reach adulthood at a healthy weight. She encouraged those with ideas to post them here.

At Brock Elementary School in Slidell, La., the First Lady told just how the program in Benton Harbor works, reports The Huffington Post.

Excerpt:

I’m also thinking about folks like Bill Magley, who’s a physical education teacher at the Dream Academy Charter School in Benton Harbor, Michigan. He started this great program that he called the “100 Mile March,” where he and his students walk two and a half miles a day, four days a week, until they hit 100 miles. The students who participated not only lost weight, but they gained confidence, and many found the experience to be pretty memorable. There’s one student who wrote me and said — and this is another quote — “I might not like it, but I’ll never forget it.” (Laughter.)

So if you’re a school that has already met the Healthier U.S. Schools Challenge, then I hope you’ll reach out to some others and help them find a way to meet the challenge, as well.

To read the rest of her remarks, check out the entire report.

Source: The Huffington Post