Parents are the biggest role model of children and for them to be convinced that healthy living starts now, parents should be at the forefront of this battle.

Health club vending machines are all up to the challenge of promoting a healthier nation. This time though, one of them is targeting all parents’ participation in achieving a healthy lifestyle. After all, if we want our kids to start living healthy, parents should lead by example.

“Too much blame is being placed on the kids. Adults need to step up and be better role models if we want our kids to be healthy. That’s what this is all about,” says Chuck Runyon—CEO of Anytime Fitness—pertaining to the nationwide campaign featuring TV commercials and full-page ads in USA Today and People magazine which declare “There is no childhood obesity epidemic.”

The controversial campaign is coming right at a time after several studies concluded that one out of every three American children is clinically overweight or obese. However, Runyon believes that putting all the blame to overweight children does not give real solutions to the obesity issue and instead adults should be stepping up and start working on their lifestyle before we can expect our kids to follow.

Meanwhile, the alarming rate of children obesity is backed by several studies correlating children’s lifestyle to their parents’. The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry noted in its study that if one parent is obese there is a 50 percent chance that the children will also be obese, whereas, if both parents are obese, the children have an 80 percent chance of being obese. Meanwhile, on a separate study conducted by the Stanford University of Medicine researchers, it was clearly indicated that children are at greatest risk of being overweight if their parents are obese.

And so it goes without saying that now is the best time to work out those extra bulges and show our kids the importance of moving healthy. Anytime Fitness will readily offer adults free 30-day memberships, free 30-minute personal training sessions and free 30-day access to online support via AnytimeHealth.com starting September. This is the health club’s move to put an end to blaming kids with the growing obesity cases. Healthy snacks will hopefylly soon be flooding  vending machines to encourage kids that eating healthy should start now.