<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  Yes, parents are ultimately responsible for the food choices they make on behalf of their children but, please, can restaurants make that job a little bit easier? That was, essentially, the message First Lady Michelle Obama had for attendees of a meeting of board of directors of the National Restaurant Association in Washington, D.C., this morning. Speaking at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, the First Lady acknowledged that the restaurant industry has made great strides in adding healthier fare to their menus.  &amp;quot;But here&amp;#039;s the thing,&amp;quot; said Obama. &amp;quot;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&amp;#039;t make a healthy choice.&amp;quot; Restaurants must reduce the numbers of empty calories that make up so many menu offerings, especially for children, she said. Citing surveys of kids&amp;#039; menus at restaurants around the country, she noted a remarkable lack of variety, regardless even of the ethnicity of the restaurant. One survey found that all but 10 percent of the menus listed macaroni and cheese \u2013 hardly low fat by anyone&amp;#039;s standards \u2013 while another 80 percent included chicken fingers. Sixty percent included hamburgers and some menu options contained a whopping 1,000 calories; that&amp;#039;s more than two-thirds of the recommended daily allowance for kids ages 2 to 3 and more than half for kids between the ages of 4 and 8.  &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not asking any of you to make drastic changes to every single one of your recipes or to totally change the way you do business,&amp;quot; the First Lady said. &amp;quot;But what I am asking is that you consider reformulating your menu in pragmatic and incremental ways to create healthier versions of the foods that we all love. That could mean substituting wheat pasta for white pasta in your regular recipes, or taking out an existing \u2013 taking an existing dish and cutting the amount of butter or cream \u2013 not enough to sacrifice flavor \u2013 we all like flavor \u2013 but just enough to make a meaningful difference in the amount of calories and fat.&amp;quot; Citing a number of steps the NRA&amp;#039;s members have made to improve the nutrition of their food, such as Healthy Dining Finder, its participation in Obama&amp;#039;s Let&amp;#039;s Move! initiative, as well as its involvement in Chefs Move to Schools program, NRA president and CEO Dawn Sweeney said the organization has been very active in efforts to improve nutrition throughout the country.  &amp;quot;The National Restaurant Association is working to help create an environment that encourages voluntary, flexible options for restaurateurs to address today&amp;#039;s healthy living challenges,&amp;quot; Sweeney said in a release following Obama&amp;#039;s speech, &amp;quot;a holistic approach that encompasses a multitude of solutions.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.delish.com/restaurants/news/a38057/michelle-obama-and-national-restaurant-association/>