This year, 1.7 million young people will be participating in Olympic and Paralympic sports in their communities-many of them for the very first time. And that is so important, because sometimes all it takes is that first lesson, or clinic, or class to get a child excited about a new sport. This summer, together with our children, we can support Team USA not just by cheering them on, but by striving to live up to the example they set.

And I come here as a daughter, raised on the South Side of Chicago - by a father who was a blue-collar city worker and a mother who stayed at home with my brother and me.

It's important for us not to lose sight of the fact that this is a family that's grieving and there's been a tremendous loss. And we all have to rally around that piece of it.

Our kids didn't do this to themselves. They don't decide the sugar content in soda or the advertising content of a television show. Kids don't choose what's served to them for lunch at school, and shouldn't be deciding what's served to them for dinner at home. And they don't decide whether there's time in the day or room in the budget to learn about healthy eating or to spend time playing outside.

We all grew up in communities with grandmothers who cooked two, three vegetables that you had to eat. There was no ifs, ands or buts about it. But that's because many of our grandparents, they had community gardens; there was the vegetable man that came around. There were many other resources that allowed them to have access. So it's not that people don't know or don't want to do the right thing; they just have to have access to the foods that they know will make their families healthier.

People want to feel hopeful.

I've always been a closet jock. With exercising, the more you do it, the more you get into it. And the more you see results, the more you're pushing for the next level.