WASHINGTON — First lady Michelle Obama marked the one-year anniversary of her initiative to fight childhood obesity Tuesday, holding public conference calls with program supporters, both to thank and to encourage them.
Children help first lady Michelle Obama plant the White House Vegetable Garden. (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)
“Just one year later, it’s pretty amazing, for me, to look back and see how far we’ve come,” Obama said during several calls to doctors, mayors and school superintendents. “[We] couldn’t have done any of this without your help.”
Obama outlined several “Let’s Move!” achievements, including the passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Act last December, pledges from manufacturers to cut thousands of calories from their food and Wal-Mart’s agreement to sell products with fewer trans-fats and sodium levels.
The initiative will also launch a national “Let’s Move!” ad campaign, reaching 33,000 media outlets, according to the Office of the First Lady.
One year in
In 30 years, American obesity has tripled. From 1976 to 2008, obesity among six to 11-year-olds jumped from 6.5 to 19.6 percent, according to the Center for Disease Control.
The first lady’s initiative is backed by the first national task force on childhood obesity, which President Obama established in February 2010, incorporating the departments of the Interior, Health and Human Services, Agriculture and Education.
The project aims to provide accurate nutrition information, increase healthy food availability, support exercise programs and encourage personal responsibility.
From appearances on Sesame Street to celebrity endorsements in YouTube videos, the campaign heavily utilizes media outlets and social media tools, providing tips and encouragement to families and schools to join the healthy food movement.
President Barack Obama supported his wife’s project, signing the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act into law in December 2010. In particular, the law gave the USDA the authority to set nutritional standards for all foods sold in public schools and awarded additional funding for schools that met updated nutritional standards.
“For the first time in over 30 years, the USDA has the power to make standards to make food in schools more nutritious,” U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on the call. “It’s ensuring we have a generation of young people who can reach their God-given potential.”
Superintendent of Jefferson County Schools, Dr. Sheldon Berman, described the law’s power played out in his school district in Louisville, Kentucky.
“62 percent of our children are eligible for free lunches,” Berman said. “For many, this is the only meal they get so it’s important that it must be healthy. Our children need this support.”
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Act ensures that all foster care children are eligible for free lunches, ensuring they do not slip through the cracks, Vilsack said.
Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin also connected “Let’s Move!” to the controversial Affordable Care Act, explaining that the project not only supports access to affordable, healthy food, but affordable health care, too.
“The Affordable Care Act ensures screening for childhood obesity that does not require a co-pay,” Benjamin said.
Swatting away criticisms
When the campaign began last year, the first lady pushed back against criticisms that the project wanted to mandate a national diet and discourage fast food restaurants.
“This isn’t about trying to turn the clock back to when we were kids or preparing five-course meals from scratch every night. No one has time for that,” the first lady said in a speech on Feb. 10, 2010. “And it’s not about being 100 percent perfect, 100 percent of the time. Lord knows I’m not. There’s a place for cookies and ice cream, burgers and fries — that’s part of the fun of childhood.”
However, Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor, blasted Obama’s anti-obesity “kick” in an interview with Laura Ingraham on the Laura Ingraham Show in November 2010.
“What she is telling us is she cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat,” Palin said. “I know I’m going to be again criticized for bringing this up, but instead of a government thinking that they need to take over and make decisions for us, according to some politician or politician’s wife priorities, just leave us alone, get off our back, and allow us as individuals to exercise our own God-given rights to make our own decisions.”
The Sugar Association, a product lobbying group, credited the shift in the national focus on healthy eating to the consumer, not exclusively the first lady.
“We are seeing a huge shift [to healthier foods] and that’s all consumer driven,” Megan Mitchell, a spokesperson for the Sugar Association said.
Changing the conversation
The initiative brought childhood obesity into the national consciousness, Benjamin said.
“We see the sobering impacts of these numbers in the high rates of chronic illnesses, like heart disease and diabetes,” Benjamin said. “It’s an ambitious goal, but it can be done. We’re fundamentally changing the conversation of how we eat our food.”
For Vilsack, the first lady’s program resonates with her husband’s message in the State of the Union address from last month.
“Mrs. Obama has given us a real opportunity to do what the President said in his address to win the future,” Vilsack said. “This is bringing partners in all society together to make a better future, no one has done that better in the last twelve months than the first lady.”
President Barack Obama gave a speech to a public school after signing the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in December 2010.
