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New campaign to promote healthier schools and homes, more physical activity for kids
By Nancy Benac
Associated Press
Published on Monday, Feb 08, 2010
WASHINGTON: By now, it is abundantly clear that Michelle Obama loves french fries.
The first lady talks about this ''guilty pleasure'' all the time, trying to ward off any notion that she is a nutrition nanny,even as she cajoles Americans to eat better.
Now her conversation with the public about the nation's health and fitness is about to get a lot more pointed.
After laying the groundwork for nearly a year, she launches a campaign on Tuesday against childhood obesity that she hopes will change the way millions of Americans eat, exercise, look and feel.
To succeed, she will have to take on powerful forces that have left one-third of children overweight:
• Busy parents who hit the fast-food drive-through rather than cook a balanced dinner.
• Schools where cafeteria meals compete with vending machines and a la carte lines stocked with soda and candy bars.
• Food companies that spend billions hawking fatty snacks to children.
• Poor neighborhoods where nary a banana nor a head of broccoli can be found on store shelves.
• The screens — computer, TV, video — that keep kids off their bikes.
The first lady's goal is ambitious: to put America on track to solve the
childhood obesity problem in a generation. It's a far cry from the days when Dolley Madison, the first first lady to associate herself with a specific cause, helped to found a District of Columbia home for orphaned girls.
''Thank God it's not going to be solely up to me,'' Obama said recently, stressing that the solution will require stepped-up effort from parents, schools, businesses, nonprofit groups, health professionals and governments.
Bringing people together
To underscore that point, she's bringing together Cabinet members, mayors, sports and entertainment figures, business leaders and more to announce the details of the administration's effort. That will involve promoting healthier schools, increasing physical activity for kids, improving access to healthy foods and giving people more nutrition information.
Health advocates couldn't be happier to have a popular first lady adopting childhood obesity as her cause. They're also keenly aware of how difficult the problem will be to solve.
''You don't just go from epidemic obesity to epidemic leanness,'' said obesity expert Dr. David Katz, director of Yale University's Prevention Research Center.
Still, Katz said, Obama can provide the inspiration to help ''shift the massive momentum of our society in the right direction.''
'Healthy People' stalls
Lofty goals have come and gone before.
A decade ago, the government's ''Healthy People'' program set a 2010 target that just 5 percent of children would be overweight or obese. The most updated government figures, released last month, weighed in at 32 percent for 2007-08. The childhood obesity rate has at least held steady in recent years, but at levels that still leave today's children on track to die younger than their parents.
The first lady has prepared for the obesity campaign by falling asleep over briefing papers, consulting with legislators, Cabinet members and policy experts, and speaking about the challenges that overstressed parents face in doing right by their children. And, famously, by hula-hooping on the South Lawn to promote the need to get kids moving.
She says she spent the past year figuring out how to talk about all of this ''in a way that doesn't make already overstressed, anxious parents feel even more guilty about a very hard thing.'' That's where the french fries come in, part of the first lady's message that nobody's perfect and that there's plenty of wiggle room in a healthy diet.
Obama caught some criticism by talking openly about having to watch the weight of her own daughters, a sign of just how touchy the subject can be.
Generating noise
Clyde Yancey, president of the American Heart Association, said Obama's focus will help generate the ''noise'' needed to change attitudes. But he said lots of organizations need to be involved to make substantive changes, such as reducing fatty snacks and sodas in schools and providing better nutrition labeling of processed foods.
''Anything she can do would be helpful because the burden of the problem is just that profound,'' Yancey said.
Keep message fresh
Her challenge will be to give her message more bite than last year's gentle prodding, without coming on too strong and sounding like a national scold.
She'll have to find creative ways to keep the message fresh so people don't tune out.
''It has to be a pretty aggressive bully pulpit,'' said Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust for America's Health, a Washington-based public health research organization.
''It has to be much more than cajoling, and how do we solve this problem together.''
Levi said the first lady, who speaks as a mother as well as a public figure, can have a huge impact by helping change parents' and kids' attitudes toward food and exercise.
But an effective campaign against childhood obesity also will require more money to carry out programs to help families turn changed attitudes into action.
''We already have in place a constellation of programs that together can provide the opportunity to make the changes in schools and communities that would make a difference,'' he said. ''The problem is that they are not fully funded.''
WASHINGTON: By now, it is abundantly clear that Michelle Obama loves french fries.
The first lady talks about this ''guilty pleasure'' all the time, trying to ward off any notion that she is a nutrition nanny,even as she cajoles Americans to eat better.
Now her conversation with the public about the nation's health and fitness is about to get a lot more pointed.
After laying the groundwork for nearly a year, she launches a campaign on Tuesday against childhood obesity that she hopes will change the way millions of Americans eat, exercise, look and feel.
To succeed, she will have to take on powerful forces that have left one-third of children overweight:
• Busy parents who hit the fast-food drive-through rather than cook a balanced dinner.
• Schools where cafeteria meals compete with vending machines and a la carte lines stocked with soda and candy bars.
• Food companies that spend billions hawking fatty snacks to children.
• Poor neighborhoods where nary a banana nor a head of broccoli can be found on store shelves.
• The screens — computer, TV, video — that keep kids off their bikes.
The first lady's goal is ambitious: to put America on track to solve the
childhood obesity problem in a generation. It's a far cry from the days when Dolley Madison, the first first lady to associate herself with a specific cause, helped to found a District of Columbia home for orphaned girls.
''Thank God it's not going to be solely up to me,'' Obama said recently, stressing that the solution will require stepped-up effort from parents, schools, businesses, nonprofit groups, health professionals and governments.
Bringing people together
To underscore that point, she's bringing together Cabinet members, mayors, sports and entertainment figures, business leaders and more to announce the details of the administration's effort. That will involve promoting healthier schools, increasing physical activity for kids, improving access to healthy foods and giving people more nutrition information.
Health advocates couldn't be happier to have a popular first lady adopting childhood obesity as her cause. They're also keenly aware of how difficult the problem will be to solve.
''You don't just go from epidemic obesity to epidemic leanness,'' said obesity expert Dr. David Katz, director of Yale University's Prevention Research Center.
Still, Katz said, Obama can provide the inspiration to help ''shift the massive momentum of our society in the right direction.''
'Healthy People' stalls
Lofty goals have come and gone before.
A decade ago, the government's ''Healthy People'' program set a 2010 target that just 5 percent of children would be overweight or obese. The most updated government figures, released last month, weighed in at 32 percent for 2007-08. The childhood obesity rate has at least held steady in recent years, but at levels that still leave today's children on track to die younger than their parents.
The first lady has prepared for the obesity campaign by falling asleep over briefing papers, consulting with legislators, Cabinet members and policy experts, and speaking about the challenges that overstressed parents face in doing right by their children. And, famously, by hula-hooping on the South Lawn to promote the need to get kids moving.
She says she spent the past year figuring out how to talk about all of this ''in a way that doesn't make already overstressed, anxious parents feel even more guilty about a very hard thing.'' That's where the french fries come in, part of the first lady's message that nobody's perfect and that there's plenty of wiggle room in a healthy diet.
Obama caught some criticism by talking openly about having to watch the weight of her own daughters, a sign of just how touchy the subject can be.
Generating noise
Clyde Yancey, president of the American Heart Association, said Obama's focus will help generate the ''noise'' needed to change attitudes. But he said lots of organizations need to be involved to make substantive changes, such as reducing fatty snacks and sodas in schools and providing better nutrition labeling of processed foods.
''Anything she can do would be helpful because the burden of the problem is just that profound,'' Yancey said.
Keep message fresh
Her challenge will be to give her message more bite than last year's gentle prodding, without coming on too strong and sounding like a national scold.
She'll have to find creative ways to keep the message fresh so people don't tune out.
''It has to be a pretty aggressive bully pulpit,'' said Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust for America's Health, a Washington-based public health research organization.
''It has to be much more than cajoling, and how do we solve this problem together.''
Levi said the first lady, who speaks as a mother as well as a public figure, can have a huge impact by helping change parents' and kids' attitudes toward food and exercise.
But an effective campaign against childhood obesity also will require more money to carry out programs to help families turn changed attitudes into action.
''We already have in place a constellation of programs that together can provide the opportunity to make the changes in schools and communities that would make a difference,'' he said. ''The problem is that they are not fully funded.''
Comments
Click here to post your comments
Vatican, Oh
Posted 09:36 AM, 02/08/2010
She says,
''Thank God it's not going to be solely up to me"
NO kidding? Man,im surprised she's not the President!
LOL.
Hope this don't do the opposite like Lady Reagans just say no program.I swear her program turned more people onto drugs then off of them.
Mogadore, OH
Posted 07:08 AM, 02/09/2010
Put her picture on the dinner plate and the kids will leave the food on the plate. Who wants to look at that thing. She makes Janet Reno look like a swim suit model.
akron, oh
Posted 08:58 AM, 02/09/2010
Well the number one snack food in the US is Soda Pop.
Ever notice how much Fatter kids started to get. When they changed the sweetener from sugar in it to CORN syrup?
akron, oh
Posted 06:55 PM, 02/09/2010
Oh those evil food companies out there selling products and making a profit. We must shut those down. As soon as her arse gets smaller I'll take this seriously.
Sagamore Hills, OH
Posted 08:45 AM, 02/10/2010
Unlike Sarah Palin, she is a good mom and not trashy. She is doing a good job raising her girls so I will listen to what she has to say.
Anyone who doesn't think that this corn syrup is killing people is very dumb. I think we are the only country that approves it. This must explain why we are the fattest.
Akron, Oh
Posted 01:14 PM, 02/10/2010
Come on Mad2, she's not that horrible. Which Janet do you like, Reno or Napolitano?
Mogadore, OH
Posted 06:09 PM, 02/12/2010
Frank aether one is better than Princess Ugly.
I feel so bad for those kids. They will be so ugly if they look like her. They will be practice girls just like mama obama was.
Barberton, OH
Posted 05:57 AM, 02/13/2010
Get off the eating and playing video games at the same time. Go outside and play. In the winter walk up the sled ride hill go ice skating. In the summer walk and ride your bike everywhere. Quit eating fast food all together and eat whole foods only. exercise, exercise, exercise. If Arnold S. couldn't do it. Good luck Mrs. Pres. http://www.fitness.gov/50thanniversary/toolkit-firstfiftyyears.htm
akron, oh
Posted 08:14 AM, 02/13/2010
hippocrate and socialist
