Kids who participate in school meal programs get roughly half of their calories each day at school. ... This is an extraordinary responsibility. But it's also an opportunity. And it's why one of the single most important things we can do to fight childhood obesity is to make those meals at school as healthy and nutritious as possible.

My role models were the people in my life. My mom, for sure. My dad. The teachers. For me, role-modeling was immediate, it was touchable. It was rare for me to idolize a movie star or a singer...because, truly, children connect with who is in their lives, present and accounted for.

Just keep focusing on the work that you're doing. Focus on what's in front of you today. And don't read the papers, just go campaign. Just do your thing. Talk to people directly

Even if we give parents all the information they need and we improve school meals and build brand new supermarkets on every corner, none of that matters if when families step into a restaurant, they can't make a healthy choice.

While budgets are tight right now, there are schools across the country that are showing that it doesn't take a whole lot of money or resources to give our kids the nutrition they deserve. What it does take, however, is effort. What it does take is imagination. What it does take is a commitment to our children's futures.

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.

Politics is a waste of time.