School Lunch Can Be Fun & Delicious

My first blog for you: a hilarious school lunch video that both warms the heart and expresses the deepest reason for my commitment to heart health awareness: our children. (Note how happy these kids are gobbling up one healthful choice, deliciously prepared…)

At the time of my first heart attack, I had been in shape for the fight of my life. Most Americans are not. My doctors often remind me that my lifetime of stellar health habits made all the difference in my survival of two SCAD-induced MIs and a heart transplant. But I had help, beginning with the good luck of being raised in a family that was physically active and ate healthfully—pleasures that Jack and I have passed on to every child in our lives. Not all families are so lucky as to have this generational legacy. I would not wish what I have gone through on anyone.

This is where schools come in. Schools guide our children through their most formative years, educating and preparing kids for productive lives as adults. Productivity (beginning in the classroom) relies on good health, and no preparation for a healthy life is as essential and pleasant as eating well. Yet many school menus feed our children heart disease and quench their thirst with diabetes—diseases that are largely preventable through diet and exercise. As a society, we have a choice. Invest now in prevention—by training young taste buds to love the flavors of real food (presented colorfully, with fun and flair!)—or pay later with soaring healthcare costs, personal devastation, and lost productivity in the work place and for our nation. Please do what you can at home and in your school system to prevent the development of cardiovascular disease and diabetes in our children. Cheers!