Michelle Obama: You Can’t Mandate Healthy Eating
EmailFrom Lisa Jones:
First Lady Michelle Obama compared her nation-wide child obesity campaign to the campaign to require Americans to wear seatbelts that culturally people have to be ready to make the shift without a mandate.
“You cannot mandate, legislate seat belt wearing. You could, but does it really work? The same thing is true for how we eat and how we live. You can’t tell people what to do in their own homes, and nor should you. “
Interviewed by Newsweek Magazine’s John Meacham today following penning her cover story for next week’s copy – the First Lady said today that like with seat belt laws, Americans are now ready to take in the information.
Speaking to roughly 120 Newsweek guests at the Newseum, Mrs. Obama espoused that all experts agree that the government can never mandate personal behavior, but the Let’s Move! Initiative is being well received, because the country is now ready to tackle the issue.
“We have the food industry coming together, and bipartisan support all over the country, parents feeling excited and support it, kids- –they’re coming– and we’ve got the professional sports community standing by.”
One of the focuses will be to provide healthy foods that are affordable.
According to Mrs. Obama, the school lunch program “is going to be a major player in the whole resource issue because many kids are getting the majority of their meals at school. So that's one of those areas where we have some control over as a society because we’re going to feed these kids for two out of three or four of their meals, depending upon how many they have. So we need to make sure that we pass legislation that makes sense, that sets clear basic nutritional guidelines, not just in the school lunch lines, but in the vending machines and a la carte lines; that we have the resources to help schools bring their standards up.”
Mrs. Obama stated other goals that can be instituted from a federal level, such as working with the FDA on packaging, leverage federal monies to try to create grocery stores in underserved communities where there are “food deserts” where no local supermarkets exists, help create better food in our school lunch programs.
When asked by Meachem about putting warning labels on Twinkies, she responded that this “strikes me as an extreme.”
She stated that we are all in favor of snacks and chips, and Twinkies are fine, but we need to know what is in a Twinkie; we need labels with ingredients and portions that our easy to understand.
“We have to change the way we view food and health forever. And we can start with kids, because their habits haven’t been ingrained. “
FLOTUS Fashion Watch: Mrs. Obama wore a green dress with mustard cardigan and thick silver belt.
-Lisa Jones
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My Twinkie is safe.. that was a close call.. whew!
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | March 17, 2010, 4:09 pm 4:09 pm
First the Twinkie murder defense and now this.. leave my filled golden sponge cake with creamy filling in the shape of a rectangular prism..alone.. pleez…
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | March 17, 2010, 4:18 pm 4:18 pm
Michelle Obama: You Can’t Mandate Healthy Eating
No Kidding,
unless you’re a parent.
Posted by: Noz | March 17, 2010, 4:54 pm 4:54 pm
“Speaking to roughly 120 Newsweek guests at the Newseum”
An apparent get-together of all Newsweek subscribers…
Posted by: tjp612 | March 17, 2010, 5:04 pm 5:04 pm
She needs to go on a diet herself.and start looking like a first lady LOL
Posted by: Joeray | March 17, 2010, 5:08 pm 5:08 pm
Then why is she trying to mandate it?
Posted by: wheresmymoney | March 17, 2010, 5:12 pm 5:12 pm
Then why is she trying to mandate it?
Posted by: wheresmymoney | Mar 17, 2010 5:12:49 PM
HOW is she trying to mandate it; why do you think she is????
It IS a mystery as to why the opposition (just say nooooo!!!) is sooooo ill-informed.
Posted by: progressive mama | March 17, 2010, 5:17 pm 5:17 pm
I wish the stories about putting grocery stores in “food deserts” and “providing” kids different meals in school would stop being treated as fluff stories.
If there are tax dollars at work with her initiatives, we should hear about them as real stories. She doesn’t have play money to do this stuff with.
Posted by: MayBee | March 17, 2010, 5:29 pm 5:29 pm
She doesn’t have play money to do this stuff with.
Posted by: MayBee | Mar 17, 2010 5:29:38 PM
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It’s all play money isn’t it? None of it is tied to gold. It’s mostly a matter of where you focus it.
Posted by: tierra | March 17, 2010, 5:59 pm 5:59 pm
is she crazy? They DO mandate selt-belt wearing! Now in most states they can even pull you over for it! Sure, the government first told us to “wear your seatbelt”. Then then said “we will fine you if you don’t wear your seltbelt” but only if we pull you over for something else. Then they said “seltbelts for frontseat only” and “for children”. And now, in many places, you get a ticket if you don’t wear a seatbelt even as an adult in a back seat. Once Obamacare passes I could see a similiar strategy. It is called incrementalism, social pressure, and then law- with the goal of getting revenue from fines and, more importantly, getting citizens used to be told “what to do” in every aspect of their life.
Once the government pays for your healthcare, your retirement, and your job then, logically, they can dictate to you what you eat, live, and do- which is, of course, their goal.
Posted by: Ed | March 17, 2010, 6:05 pm 6:05 pm
Interviewed by Newsweek Magazine’s John Meacham today following penning her cover story for next week’s copy – the First Lady said today that like with seat belt laws, Americans are now ready to take in the information.
“We have the food industry coming together, and bipartisan support all over the country, parents feeling excited and support it, kids- –they’re coming– and we’ve got the professional sports community standing by.”
Posted by: tierra | March 17, 2010, 6:31 pm 6:31 pm
PepsiCo Inc announced Tuesday of this week that it will remove all of its full-calorie sweetened soft drinks from schools in more than 200 countries by the year 2012. Organizations such as the World Heart Federation and the Center for Science in the Public Interest applaud the soft-drink giant’s efforts to reduce its influence on young children.
PepsiCo, the second largest soft drink maker in the world behind Coca-Cola, announced the plan on the same day that First Lady Michelle Obama urged major food companies to reduce fat, salt, and sugar into foods that are marketed to children.
In elementary schools, PepsiCo will only sell water, fat-free or low-fat milk, and juice with no added sugar.
Posted by: tierra | March 17, 2010, 6:34 pm 6:34 pm
“We have the food industry coming together, and bipartisan support all over the country, parents feeling excited and support it, kids- –they’re coming– and we’ve got the professional sports community standing by.”
Posted by: tierra | March 17, 2010, 6:35 pm 6:35 pm
It’s all play money isn’t it?
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No. It’s taxpayer’s money. It’s the money you work for and then have to give the government.
Posted by: MayBee | March 17, 2010, 7:44 pm 7:44 pm
Education and incentives to eat and live a healthy life are excellent goals and policies. Rules, regulations, and mandates to do so violate liberty, freedom of choice, and personal responsibility.
Leveraging federal money to create grocery stores in ‘food desert’ communities? Sounds noble, but like most everything the gov’t handles, it will be managed poorly in a corrupt bureaucratic mess that continually loses money. Wrong method to address a legitimate issue – knee jerk approach to ‘gov solutions’.
Posted by: xracerx | March 17, 2010, 7:56 pm 7:56 pm
What comment could I make except keep the damn government out of my life and quit telling me if I can have a McDonalds, or eat sale on my watermelon, or maybe tax it at $50 pound just so I can’t afford to live “my way”. Grandma lived to 94 and ate things they probably put her in prison for now….fatty foods etc.
Just tax me until I’m broke and then the “super medicare” package can take care of me – unless I’m “denied service” cause I ate another “quarter pounder”…better yet, don’t let congress meet but once every four years and we’d be safe until we could boot them out…
Posted by: iwontell | March 17, 2010, 9:30 pm 9:30 pm
Seriously? I have a 16 and 19 year old and I really don’t care if they have a soda in school or a twinkie WHENEVER. Because they probably will only have either three times a year. But when they want one, I think they should HAVE ONE. I AM THE ONE and THEY are the ones who should decide, not YOU, ie the government. And if your ass is fat, STOP EATING. Enough with the big brother. Get out of my health care. And I’ll pay for mine, you pay for yours’. I’ll be a responsible adult and you do the same.
Posted by: MileHighHappy | March 17, 2010, 10:01 pm 10:01 pm
It’s all play money isn’t it?
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No. It’s taxpayer’s money. It’s the money you work for and then have to give the government.
Posted by: MayBee | Mar 17, 2010 7:44:29 PM
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Not according to the last Republican president who cut back on how much people have to give to the government – and then spent more and more money – until the economy crashed on his watch.
What was he thinking?
Posted by: tierra | March 17, 2010, 11:44 pm 11:44 pm
The Republican right seems to think education and good information threaten their freedom to be stupid.
Posted by: tierra | March 17, 2010, 11:47 pm 11:47 pm
There is nothing more amusing than a leftist trying to explain basic economics.
Posted by: ConservativeWoman | March 17, 2010, 11:52 pm 11:52 pm
I think this is one case people need to applaud Michelle Obama, and I speak as an Obama hater.
Like or hate, she at least admitted you cannot mandate healthy eating.
And in the public school, I hate to break it to you, but unless your kids bring food from home, it is the school’s right to regulate what kids eat. Public schools have every right to refuse pop/soda and candy machines, they have every right to refuse to serve any food deemed unhealthy. The only food they don’t have a right to regulate is what kids bring from home.
Posted by: Vincent Fincher | March 18, 2010, 1:46 am 1:46 am
yes this right…comment..It’s all play money isn’t it?
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No. It’s taxpayer’s money. It’s the money you work for and then have to give the government.
Posted by: Ilan Ben Menachem | March 18, 2010, 4:21 am 4:21 am
I am 100% for the First Lady getting out there and trying to change the hearts and minds of parents and children to eat right. Good for her.
What worries me though are laws like the NY State law to impose huge fines on restaurants that want to add salt to food.
I watch my sodium big time and I do get upset when some cook thinks he should add salt to my vegetables (happened last night).
But nothing is more effective than customers complaining, not stupid laws that the state doesn’t have the money to enforce in the first place.
Posted by: Denbo | March 18, 2010, 9:56 am 9:56 am
Maybe she should mandate what everyone eats. We’re told what do to and when to do it by this government.
Posted by: Lizzie | March 18, 2010, 1:58 pm 1:58 pm
okay First of all, I’m a student. Majority of kids meals are at schools. Now since Michelle Obama has “attempted” to mandate students’ food, it is more of a minority of kids meals. Kids are throwing away their milk and their lunch because they “despise” it. If you say your helping us, then why are you not looking at other perspectives, Mrs. Obama? What? Are you going to make a Skinny Awareness program now? And how is that going to make kids feel? Less likely to survive? ha-ha-ha. I despise this program. School Lunch was my escape to american food sometimes, because it let me have a flavor of another culture. and many others as well… Now I’m having a taste of “Michelle Obama”‘s culture which I’m not even sure what that is…
Posted by: jane doe | October 10, 2010, 10:20 pm 10:20 pm
Getting better food in the cafeteria kitchen is great, but stopping all other foods like soda and candy to be allowed in schools is power crazy. Students not being able to sell suckers for fundraisers in school is taking money from the very students who want to make a change, my leadership students. Chocolate milk has more grams of sugar per ounce than soda. And muffins with 900mg. of sodium are cafeteria appropriate, how does this equate out.
Posted by: Teacher | January 8, 2011, 12:17 am 12:17 am