WLS News Episode 11 (March 13, 2009)
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 16% of all children in the U.S. between the ages of 6 and 19 are obese. That’s about nine million kids – a 300% rise in the past 20 years. With this in mind, profit and non-profit corporations like the Cartoon Network, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Eating Well Media Group, have joined forces with the Association of Junior Leagues International for the fourth annual “Kids in the Kitchen” campaign – an initiative dedicated to improving the health of today’s youth by empowering them to make choices that lead to healthy lifestyles.
The program is designed to educate at-risk and obese children in nutrition and healthy lifestyle choices. More than 200 Junior Leagues are participating in the initiative, and volunteers in each locale will teach participating youngsters and their parents how to create healthy meals. Participants not only get to enjoy hands-on educational activities, but they can also access informative, fun educational content on the Kids in the Kitchen website.
Backers hope that the program can help children nationwide adopt healthy diet and lifestyle practices, both to reduce the rate of childhood obesity and to prevent a future epidemic of diabetes and other obesity-related diseases.
