Remarks Prior to a Meeting on Childhood Obesity,
February 1, 2007

The President. Laura and I are so pleased to welcome the Ad Council, as well as leaders from our business community, to talk about a serious American problem, and that is childhood obesity.

Childhood obesity is a costly problem for the country. It puts stress on American families. And we believe it is necessary to come up with a coherent strategy to help folks all throughout our society cope with the issue. And I appreciate the Secretary being here. Thanks for coming, Mr. Secretary.

We’ll discuss—one of the strategies is to have the Ad Council put on an interesting series of ads encouraging children to exercise. One way for this Nation to cope with the issue of obesity is to get people outside—whether it be through sports or hiking or conservation. So we’ll encourage them to do that, encourage parents to encourage their children to participate in the great outdoors. We’ll also talk about healthy diet choices here.

And so I want to thank you all for coming. It’s a serious issue that we take seriously here at the Government.

Laura is off to New York to kick off the program to help deal with heart disease here. And you might want to say a few words.

[At this point, the First Lady made brief remarks.]

The President. Thank you all.

Note: The President spoke at 9:20 a.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the White House. In his remarks, he referred to Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael O. Leavitt. The transcript released by the Office of the Press Secretary also included the remarks of the First Lady. The Office of the Press Secretary also released a Spanish language transcript of these remarks.