Photographers Blog

By Mario Anzuoni

This year, as in the past, I was assigned to shoot the show portion of the annual Kids Choice awards. The show caters to an audience of children and teenagers and most importantly all the awards are voted on by the kids. The main star of the show is always the green slime – which the kids and some of the celebrities get plenty of.

A few days ahead of the show there was an announcement that the First Lady of the U.S. was going to attend the show with daughters Sasha and Malia to present The Big Help Award to singer Taylor Swift.

Naturally this year security was stepped up due to the attendance of the First Lady, so I had to be at the venue a few hours in advance to clear Secret Service. We were informed that Michelle Obama would arrive about 15 minutes before the show and we would have a few minutes to photograph her in her seat. Despite being a hectic and quick photo opportunity surrounded by thousands of screaming kids, I managed to get a few spontaneous frames of the First Lady interacting with some kids in the audience.

Show host Will Smith opened with a performance where he was hanging from the ceiling. As the show went on, celebrities such as Heidi Klum, Chris Colfer and Halle Berry were slimed, along with the “lucky” kids in the mosh pit.

The highlight of the evening was of course when First Lady Michelle Obama took the stage to present a thrilled Taylor Swift with the Big Help Award for her charitable work.

As children’s obesity has dramatically increased in recent years, Michelle Obama had made a cause out of fighting the national trend towards bad diet and too little exercise. Two years ago she launched her “Let’s Move” initiative to improve the diet and fitness of our nation.

According to “Let’s Move”, over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled. “Let’s Move” states that “today, nearly one in three children in America is overweight or obese. Thirty years ago, most people led lives that kept them at a healthy weight. Kids walked to and from school every day, ran around at recess, participated in gym class, and played for hours after school before dinner. Meals were home-cooked with reasonable portion sizes and there was always a vegetable on the plate. Eating fast food was rare and snacking between meals was an occasional treat.”

My, how things have changed! I see it at my own kid’s schools. Students have limited recess activity and physical education classes that seem to be more about eliminating injury than actually providing exercise. On several occasions I’ve gone to the school principal and requested more exercise opportunities for the kids at school. My requests were generally accepted and appreciated. On diet, my kids have never, to my knowledge, eaten at McDonald’s. Down time…..well….we have a saying in our house….”If the sun is out, so are you.” TV and computer time is closely monitored. Am I being a whacky parent, or were there others that thought like me?