WebMD Town Hall: Fitness for Kids
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Narrator
Ok every body, get up, get moving and get excited! Put your hands together for the woman you've all been waiting for. She's the Mom in Chief, First Lady Michelle Obama! : Applause and music.
Michelle Obama
We're encouraging our girls to start early with exercise. You know, just making sure that they've got some routine, some sport that they do, because what I don't want is my girls to grow up like many girls grow up, thinking that sweating isn't cute. You know, that girls shouldn't be on teams and learn how to fall and to compete. So I think we, as women in particular, have to be that role model for our girls especially. So when I get on the treadmill and my girls see me, I make sure they know mommy is tired. Mommy doesn't want to work out. I would rather go back to bed, but after you go to school, I'm going up to the gym because it's good for me and I'll feel better once I'm done. : Music.
Michelle Obama
The important thing is for people to find the thing that they love, especially when you're starting out. What's the thing that you think you can do? If you like music, then go with the dancing. Step class is good music, you know, good beat that gets you going and keeps you going. You know, we try to do a little bit of everything. The president plays basketball. I like to play tennis. Sasha plays basketball. Malia plays tennis. So we each have something we can do with the girls. Riding bikes when we can, when we can sneak off and nobody can see us, we'll get on our bikes and we'll go. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it works. : Music.
Michelle Obama
When you come home from work, put on your workout clothes. Put your gym shoes on. Do not put on your pajamas. Do not pass go. You know, because if you have the clothes on already, you're more likely, it's just the notion of taking your clothes off and putting something else back on, right? Nobody wants to do that. But if you start out, and my trainer always tells me that working out early is the best thing, but not everybody can do that. If you get it out of the way then nothing gets in the way of your day, it doesn't interfere with anything. You get up, you do it first thing. That's why I work out in the morning, because I never know what my day is going to look like. : Music.
Michelle Obama
Just say no. Turn it off. Turn it off. Say no. In our house we have pretty strict rules about TV time, computer time, nothing during the week. They can earn an hour if they finish everything they have to do for that week, and they have to earn it. So they can work towards an hour during the week. And what happens is that they're bored, so then they wind up doing stuff like playing with their dog and then they're running around, because kids can't sit still. So they're not going to just sit there and stare, they might do a little more reading, but eventually, they're going to figure out, just like we did when we were growing up, when we were bored, you just picked something up and you started moving, right?