Mooch knows best.

Via Parade Magazine:

PM: You’ve played such a leadership role on the issue of childhood obesity in America. Recently the American Medical Association classified obesity as a disease.

MO: When we started, there were people who were thinking, “Oh, that’s not an issue. Why is she picking that?” But in a short amount of time, we have turned a challenging problem into one where there are glimmers of hope and change.

What’s the statistic you would like to see?

Our goal is to see the numbers reduced in a generation. I keep looking at where these kids will be in their 20s. We may not see [results] right away, but we’re going to see it in their habits. I look at how my kids view exercise. They have a complete understanding that nutrition and exercise go hand in hand. I didn’t think like that when I was a kid. But they have a real consciousness about it that I’d like to think comes from the years of attention we’ve put into this. But let me just say there have been people working on these issues for decades.

Some towns are pushing back on the new school lunch rules. Why is lunch so controversial?

Change is hard—it’s as simple as that. You start making tweaks to something that has been a mainstay and you’re going to get some backlash, particularly from kids. We as adults can’t be shortsighted. That’s part of how we got to this problem in the first place. We sort of give our kids what they want, as opposed to what they need. I understand this as a mom. I mean, to sit at the dinner table and have your kids pout over what you’ve served for dinner is an ego buster. Right? My kids are normal. If they could eat burgers and fries and ice cream every day, they would. And so would I. But that doesn’t sustain us.