I was very excited to see that on Wednesday at a garden harvest event, the First Lady announced that Sesame Workshop and the Produce Marketing Association (PMA) joined the Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) in a two-year agreement to help promote fresh fruit and vegetable consumption to kids, making those healthy choices a little easier for busy parents and families to make. This is particularly important for our Latino families, as Latino children have high rates of childhood obesity.

Now that my daughter is six years old, I notice more and more the huge impact media personalities and the messages she receives have on her. That’s why it’s incredibly important to make sure that the messages that are being marketed to our children promote a positive, nurturing and healthy lifestyle and that empowers them to make those choices.

As noted by Elyse Cohen, Deputy Director, Let’s Move! on a blog post about the announcement on WhiteHouse.gov, “Sesame Workshop is taking an unprecedented step of enabling produce companies to use the power of their characters to encourage children to eat more fruits and vegetables. In a recent study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, the number of children who chose apples over cookies nearly doubled when an Elmo sticker was placed on the apple. Popular characters can play a strong role in influencing kids’ food choices and this commitment aims to influence healthy choices.”

 The event featured Rosita, Sesame Street’s first bilingual puppet as well as much-loved Elmo. Check out this adorable video, en español, featuring Rosita and Michelle Obama in the garden.

Sesame Street is really going all out with their Latino-themed videos for Hispanic Heritage Month!
Earlier this week we shared Romeo Santos’ video singing with Elmo and today we found this adorable one of Rosita singing about what being Mexican means to her. Love!