Tom Vilsack Quotes

Given that the biggest rise in childhood obesity rates are occurring in children ages 3 to 5 years, we must modify our efforts to place an emphasis on prevention versus intervention.

More than ever, we as parents and a nation must do something about the growth of obesity in our children. We must do more than just talk, we must be concerned enough to act.

The rate of childhood obesity is just ridiculous. Anytime I can get involved with teaching them how to get physical exercise, I want to help in any way possible.

Childhood nutrition and healthy eating is a cause that is extremely close to my heart.

Parents are working more than ever before and unable to monitor what kids are eating at home, and schools are selling astronomical amounts of junk food in order to supplement shrinking budgets. It's a ticking time bomb, and America's children are exploding.

Michelle Obama. She is big on encouraging kids to eat healthy - which is great.

School is where children spend most of their time, and it is where we lay the foundation for healthy habits. That's why New Jersey is the first state to adopt a comprehensive school nutrition policy that bans candy, soda, and other junk food.

This country must break the cycle of childhood obesity. Unless we reverse course, this epidemic will continue to put more of our children and the future of our nation at risk.

I believe that parents need to make nutrition education a priority in their home environment. It's crucial for good health and longevity to instill in your children sound eating habits from an early age.

To amplify our efforts, USDA is joining with First Lady Michelle Obama in aggressively promoting the 'Let's Move' campaign, which will combat the epidemic of childhood obesity through a comprehensive approach that builds on effective strategies, and mobilizes public and private sector resources.

Childhood obesity is best tackled at home through improved parental involvement, increased physical exercise, better diet and restraint from eating.

We should not have our children going to school to learn how to become obese.

When it comes to kids, it's just not hard to get them healthy. I don't find it hard and don't understand why people find it hard.

Fixing obesity is going to require a change in our modern relationship with food. I'm hopeful that we begin to see a turnaround in this childhood obesity epidemic.

It starts in the home environment. If the parents eat bad? Those kids are going to eat bad. If they see their parents stopping at McDonald's or Pizza Hut, then that's what they're going to eat as well.

With the chronic obesity in America, it's more important than ever to not only feed kids healthy foods but to teach them how to make healthy choices on their own.

We're adults. We're the ones who should teach the kids what's good to eat. I don't think the government should ever regulate what we eat at home, but we're feeding them in school with tax dollars. Quite frankly, if my tax dollars are being spent to feed kids, I'd rather feed them better food.

As parents are usually working, they haven't time to teach children about cooking, and it's a wilderness. They should be given healthy recipes - some standbys so that when they leave home, they don't live on junk.

It's not up to the kids to decide what's healthy for them. That's our job.

Nutrition is just so important to me, mostly especially for children.

We can aim to create a culture, where kids ask for healthy options instead of resisting them.

Ultimately this issue is on us. We're the ones who make the decisions about what our kids eat.

I don't have slim children. I have hearty ones.

I think Michelle Obama is on the right track with her Let's Move campaign to bring down childhood obesity. She and I come from the same state, Illinois, which is number four in the nation for obese children. One out of five Illinois children are considered obese. Not overweight, obese. And two-thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese.

It is said that the way to prevent obesity is not to allow kids to become overweight in the first place. But it takes a multi-pronged approach that has to start with parents. Kids are just too young to understand the consequences of obesity.