Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Tonya Papanikolas ReportingThe rates of overweight and obese children have tripled over the past 30 years. Here in Utah, the Health Department says one out of every four children is overweight. Today the governor's wife joined forces with a celebrity of sorts to give kids a lesson in healthy eating.
Kids at Washington Elementary were excited to see Subway's spokesman, Jared Fogle. Fogle says he understands childhood obesity; he became overweight in the 3rd grade. It affected his self-esteem, his self-confidence and his grades.
Fogle shared his story with the kids and captivated his audience when he showed them the pants he used to wear when he weighed 425 pounds. The children gasped when they saw the jeans.
Fogle told the children he used to play a lot of video games and eat a lot of junk food. He's hoping they take the message to heart.
Jared Fogle, Subway Spokesman: "When they start to make poor decisions, maybe they're eating a lot more junk food or eating more fast food than they should, playing video games, hopefully they'll remember, ‘Well, I shouldn't do that because I could wind up having to wear Jared's old pair of pants.'"
The kids also learned about the different food groups as they built sandwiches. Then they participated in some physical activity.
Utah's first lady says it's important to teach the kids their choices now will impact their life later.
Mary Kaye Huntsman, First lady: "The greatest gift is your health, and if we can instill that in our kids early on, that really is a wonderful gift to have and all they have is the one body and they need to take care of it."
Mrs. Huntsman says parents need to talk about healthy choices with their children. She said it was just as important as reading with kids.
