U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand made a stop in the Bronx recently to attend a “healthy eating” fair at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center in Norwood.
The senator took a quick tour of several booths set up in the hospital’s lobby, where staff presented visitors with nutritional information and tips for eating healthier.
“This display is all about nutrition,” said Gillibrand, who sits on the Senate’s Agriculture and Nutrition Committee, the first New York representative to do so for nearly four decades. She’s sponsored legislation to ban trans-fats in school lunches and increase funding for child fitness programs.
“Too many of our children are obese,” she told reporters on her visit today. “We need to do much better.”
The Bronx has some of the bleakest obesity statistics in the State. According to a 2009 report from Gillibrand’s office, 62.7 percent of Bronx County adults are overweight or obese. In the South Bronx, a third of pre-schoolers enrolled in the city’s Head Start program are obese.