West Side High’s Principal Jean McTavish, received well deserved praise throughout the event for personally championing a culture of health on her school’s campus. Among her many accomplishments, McTavish personally teaches a spin class at the school and reportedly ordered all vending machines turned around so they could not be accessed when vendors refused to stock them with healthy options.
If every school in America had a champion like Jean McTavish, we’d be well on our way to a healthier life for our children. Unfortunately, few schools have a well-informed, highly motivated leader like Ms. McTavish, making policy change critically important if we wish to make healthy schools and communities the norm.
The First Lady’s most important statement about improving our culture of health and nutrition may well have been that, in spite of gains, “we cannot afford to be complacent for a minute.” With well-funded opponents like Big Food and the School Nutrition Association working furiously to roll back school nutrition standards and prevent further healthy changes to our food system, complacency would take us right back to where we started.
Article Appeared @http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-huehnergarth/michelle-obama-childhood-nutrition_b_6637104.html