Weight watcher ...

First lady Michelle Obama framed her national campaign against childhood obesity in intensely personal terms Thursday, relating that her own daughters were starting to get off-track before the family’s pediatrician gave her a wake-up call and warned her to watch it.

“In my eyes, I thought my children were perfect,” the first lady said. “I didn’t see the changes.”

But the family’s pediatrician, she said, kept a close eye on trends in African-American children and “warned that he was concerned that something was getting off-balance.”

Mrs. Obama said parents often recognize that kids in general don’t eat right and aren’t exercising enough, but “we always think that only happens to someone else’s kids, and I was in that position.”

The first lady said that over the next few months she made some small changes that got her daughters back on track. No more weekday TV. More attention to portion sizes. Low-fat milk. Water bottles in the lunch boxes. Grapes on the breakfast table. Apple slices at lunch. Colorful vegetables on the dinner table.

“It was really very minor stuff, but these small changes resulted in some really significant improvements,” Mrs. Obama said.

Mrs. Obama said that’s the message she hopes to share in her anti-obesity campaign, that “small changes can lead to big results.”

The first lady made her remarks at a YMCA in Alexandria, Va., where she appeared with Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Dr. Judith Palfrey, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Kerrigan laid to rest ...

Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan’s father was remembered by family and friends at a funeral in Massachusetts.

The former Olympian buried her face on her mother’s shoulder and appeared to weep as her father’s flag-draped casket was carried into St. Patrick’s Church in Stoneham on Thursday. Kerrigan did not speak during the funeral Mass for Daniel Kerrigan.

Daniel Kerrigan died four days ago following a violent struggle with his son, Mark Kerrigan. Family members say he died of an unrelated heart attack.

The 45-year-old Mark Kerrigan has pleaded not guilty to assault. Authorities are awaiting tests on the cause of his father’s death.

Duggar update ...

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar say their new baby —No. 19—is doing well, even though she was born more than three months early and weighed less than 2 pounds at birth.

The couple from northwest Arkansas says 7-week-old Josie Brooklyn is “growing and getting stronger each day.” The Duggars and their children are featured on TLC’s newly renamed reality show “19 Kids & Counting,” which will showcase Josie’s birth on a special episode Sunday night.