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NYC Students Get Healthy Eating Tips At Upstate Farm

NEW YORK (CBS 2) -- With obesity in children at a crisis level, parents are doing all they can to get their kids to eat healthier food, especially in the inner city.

CBS 2's Cindy Hsu took a trip with students from Harlem Friday, who got a jump start on healthy habits at a special farm upstate.

Second graders from PS 180 boarded a bus and arrived at The Sylvia Center at Katchkie Farm, where harvested every vegetable imaginable.

"There's a lot of flowers, lots of animals, lots of insects and lots of grass," 7-year-old Najah Julien told Hsu.

Anna Hammond, of the Sylvia Center at Katchkie Farm, said many children in New York City have only been exposed to fresh vegetables like "a celery, and an onion and maybe some lettuce."

The program teamed up with inner city schools to make sure kids learned where fresh food came from through their hands-on experience at the farm. The trip also served to educate students on what to look for when they returned home.

"You have to eat healthy stuff like broccoli, carrots, apples, fruit and tomatoes," 7-year-old Kayla Willie said.

"Vegetables are healthy for you, they make you stronger, they make you smarter," 8-year-old Tashea Bryant said.

Following the health lesson, the children sat down to enjoy the meal they helped prepare -- a meal that included no chips and no soda, but rather veggies, bread and soup.

While the trip was the last school farm visit for the season, chef instructors continued to work throughout the city -- 5 days a week -- at public housing sites and after school programs, to spread the word about healthy eating.

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