Obama wants to set up White House farmers market

health-care forum; here's the transcript:

Q. I have a two-part question. One is choice, the choice that we make to
eat the foods that we eat and the lifestyle that we choose to engage in.
And the second part, your family is very fit. What do you and the First
Lady and the girls do to encourage physical fitness, and what can we-not
the government, not private corporations-do to encourage activity in the
public-school system and in young people?

A.* PRESIDENT OBAMA: * Well, this-this is a great question. Look,
if-this is an interesting statistic. If we went back to the obesity
rates that existed back in the 1980s, the Medicare system over several
years could save as much as a trillion dollars. I mean, that's-that's
how much our obesity rate has made a difference in terms of diabetes and
heart failure and all sorts of preventable diseases.

And so what we want to do is to first of all, in health-care reform, in
the legislation, encourage prevention and wellness programs by saying
that any health-care plan out there has to provide for free checkups,
prevention and wellness care. That's got to be part of your deal, part
of your package. And that way nobody's got an excuse not to go in and
get a checkup.

Now, even if we do all that-and there are a lot of-there are a lot of
businesses out there that, on their own, are already providing
incentives to their employees. Safeway, for example, is a company that
has given financial incentives to employees to make sure that they are
taking care of theirselves (sic) and getting regular checkups and
mammograms and colonoscopies and so forth. And it has saved them a lot
of money in terms of their premiums.

So there's a-there's a financial incentive for a lot of businesses to
get in the business of prevention and wellness.

But you're absolutely right that, even if we've got legislation, even if
companies are encouraging it, part of what we also have to do, though,
is teach our children, early, the importance of health. And that's-that
means that all of us have to, in our communities, in our places of
worship, in our school systems, encourage nutrition programs, provide
young people outdoor activities that give them exercise.

And Michelle and I always talk about the fact when-when we were kids,
during the summer, you know, basically, mom just said, "See ya!" after
breakfast. You were gone. (Laughter.) You might run in, get some lunch,
go back out, and you wouldn't be back till dinner. And that whole time,
all you're doing is moving.

Now, unfortunately, times have changed. Sometimes, safety concerns
prevent kids from doing that. Sometimes, there are a lot of kids just
don't have a playground. Little leagues may be, you know, diminished.
That means that, you know, we as adults in the community may have to
provide more and more outlets for young people to get the kind of
exercise that they need.

When it comes to food, one of the things that we are doing is working
with school districts. And the child nutrition legislation is going to
be coming up. We provide an awful lot of school lunches out there
and-and reimburse local school districts for school-lunch programs.
Let's figure out how can we get some fresh fruits and vegetables in the
mix. Because sometimes you go into schools and-you know what the menu
is, you know? It's French fries, Tater Tots, hot dogs, pizza and-now,