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CONTACT: CSPI Phone: 202-332-9110 |
Childhood Obesity Initiative Announced by First Lady Michelle Obama
Statement of CSPI Nutrition Policy Director Margo G. Wootan
WASHINGTON - February 9 - For far too long, the nation's response to childhood obesity has been underwhelming, considering obesity’s massive impact on the nation's physical and fiscal health. The First Lady has the clout and visibility to change that and mobilize the nation's resources to address the problem.
Helping to support parents’ efforts to feed their children well and get them engaged in physical activity will require not only working cooperatively with food and entertainment companies, but also calling on them to do better for our children. Beverage companies have taken some notable steps to get sugary sodas out of schools, but Mrs. Obama should call on beverage and food companies to support Senators Tom Harkin and Lisa Murkowski and Representative Lynn Woolsey in their bipartisan effort to update the disco-era national standards for school vending machines and get junk food and all sugary beverages out of schools once and for all. Entertainment conglomerates like Nickelodeon and Disney are limiting the use of their characters on junk foods and running PSAs, but should be pressed to remove junk-food advertising from their television channels and other media.
This year, Congress must reauthorize the school lunch and other child nutrition programs--a key opportunity to improve the diets and health of millions of American children. The First Lady can help by working with Congress to fund the full $1 billion per year recommended in the President's budget and urging them to move the bill quickly, so new reforms can be in place for the next school year.
3 Comments so far
Show AllIs the First lady going to take on Monsanto, the GMO industry, corn subsidies, disease and hormone-laden factory farming, the soda pushers, fast food lobbyists, big Pharma, and the HMOs who control her husband? Didn't think so.
Initiatives for healthy food and exercise are great - but focusing on "obesity" is not. This focus stigmatizes kids who are already socially discriminated against. The fact is that sustained weight loss is extremely difficult, and also that the health risks of "obesity" are greatly overstated. Much research shows that overweight people have longer life expectancy than "normal weight" people. We should focus on healthy behaviors and environments, not weight.
BTW, I put "obesity" in quotes because it's a pejorative term. It's from the Latin for over-eating, as if that were the whole cause of the problem. In fact, stress, low quality food, and barriers to physical activity are the main causes. I write about this quite a bit in my book Diabetes: Sugar-coated Crisis and my blog on www.diabetesselfmanagement.com
If she really cared about the nation's children, she'd simply recommend families start organic gardens like she has, and that kids eat that food (as her children do) instead of what the giant food companies Barack is catering to, mislabel "food."
If CSPI says to reauthorize the school lunch and other child nutrition programs, one can't help be immediately suspicious, since CSPI has been pushing the food safety bills that are the death of local farming and safe food for everyone. If local farmers were gone, those programs would become more money for agribusiness.
What is wrong with Common Dreams that they seem not to be able to tell the difference between progressive articles on food and industry pieces?