A very special eighth grader at Milford Middle School, in New Hampshire is teaching her classmates how to cook healthy.
Thirteen-year-old Lily Ayotte has taken on the battle of childhood obesity.
“I know how it feels to be made fun of for your size, got made fun of all the time, I’m short and skinny, and like that makes me feel bad about myself, so why should kids who are a little bit obese made fun of too,” said Ayotte.
“I wanna help those kids get to be a little bit less chubby, so they don’t develop those health problems over time,” said Ayotte.
She’s doing it by teaching her classmates healthy cooking.
“I get it, kids don’t want to eat healthy necessarily because Twinkies taste better but now I can teach them how to make things taste better,” said Ayotte.
Lily is a student ambassador for the “Fuel Up To Play 60” program.
“The ‘Fuel Up’ part of it is through the National Dairy Council and that’s the eating healthy. The ‘Play 60’ part of it is through the NFL and that’s getting kids to be active,” said Ashley Blake, Ayotte’s health teacher.
Through the program, she received a “Gen-Youth” grant to start the healthy cooking classes in her middle school.
“When you’re getting taught from a teacher, you’re like ‘Oh, well they’re telling us this because they know and they think they have experience.’ When you’re getting taught from a student you can relate to them,” said Ayotte.
Her eight-week program meets two days a week and shows kids how to prepare all kinds of nutritionally balanced meals.
“We did spaghetti and I taught them how to hide the broccoli and mushrooms in their sauce,” said Ayotte.
The classes are free and a huge success.
“It’s really fun. You get to learn new things and you get to eat them after you make them,” said Taylor Robinson, one of the student’s in Ayotte’s class.
When Ayotte won her $4,000 grant, she had the opportunity to fly to Omaha, Nebraska to meet billionaire businessman Warren Buffett.