US program to ease childhood obesity

Numbers of obese and overweight children have more than tripled among American children in the past 30 years, according to the US Center for Disease Control.

From schools in local communities all the way to the White House, people are looking at ways to change this situation and help children learn how to live healthy lives. Our correspondent, Priscilla Huff, takes a look at one program in Washington, DC.

This vegetable garden does not look like much now in the cold winter season, but for the students at Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School, it's a special place.

Gabrielle McCarley-Lewis, student, said, "I like to plant the vegetables."

Gabby is one of the students who helped plant the carrots and broccoli and even the lettuce that has ended up on their lunch tables - and she's learned a lesson.

Gabrielle McCarley-Lewis said, "well, I didn't like carrots at first, but a lot of people told me it would help my eyesight and at first I had to wear glasses when I was in fourth grade but, I eat carrots and it helped."

The students at the school gobble up the fresh salads available to them.The salad bar is part of a larger program at the school to teach healthy eating.The vegetables grown in the garden by the students become part of the meals served to the school, all cooked fresh...unlike the fast food and processed meals so readily available around America.

Linda Moore, Elsie Whitlow Stokes, Community Freedom Public Charter School, said, "We prepare only fresh foods in the meals that we have here. We do nutrition education here and health education in the classroom, so that students understand the relationship between what they eat, and how healthy they are."

The program at Stokes Charter School serves a few hundred students in Washington, DC., at a time when around one in three American children is considered overweight or obese.

When the hungry boys and girls at the charter school line up for lunch, the students are excited in ways that would surprise adults.

Lisa Dobbs, Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community, Freedom Public Charter School, said, "And, all of our vegetables, y'know, kids will come up and say, I LOVE CAULIFLOWER!! and you'll thinking, really? here have some more! But they eat everything, all that stuff, they eat chickpeas, black beans, they eat broccoli."

The public schools of Washington are changing who cooks school lunches and what goes in them to help children learn to love vegetables.

Brian Macnair, chief development office, DC Central Kitchen, said, "AND, Another 3500 meals a day to seven DC public schools, which is a new pilot project, to serve healthy, from scratch meals to public schools."

Research shows, if healthy foods, such as fruits and vegetables, are readily available, children will eat them, and that's better for them.

CCTV's Pricilla Huff said, "Experts strongly support efforts to get children to eat more fruits and vegetables because if a child is overweight at age 12, there's a 90 percent chance they will be an obese adult an explanation for why two-thirds of American adults are considered overweight."