Let’s Move
Earlier this week First Lady Michelle Obama introduced her new campaign, titled Let’s Move, to fight childhood obesity. In between the blizzard reports you may have caught her very articulate and passionate arguments for why this campaign is necessary, and what the four main components are in this attack.
1. Healthy Choices which is about making better nutritional information available to parents so that they can make healthy food choices for their families.
2. Healthier Schools which looks to improve the breakfast and lunches served in America’s school cafeterias.
3. Physical Activity which aims to create an environment that encourages and promotes more activity.
4. Accessible and Healthy Affordable Food which seeks to eliminate what has been termed “food deserts” or regions where there isn’t access to healthy food within a mile.
I like Mrs. Obama’s campaign. She is realistic and is right upfront in acknowledging the realities of today’s busy families. She isn’t preaching a message of perfection but rather one of incremental changes with a lot of community support. And there aren’t any nanny-state type of rules that tell us what to eat.
However, I’m not so sure how well this campaign will work. I don’t think we’re in this obesity crisis because parents don’t have nutritional labeling. I think it’s because parents are too busy (as she acknowledges) to take the time to study food pyramids and labels. Many families don’t even take the time to plan their meals or grocery lists for the week.
On the other hand, since the school districts are in charge of what food is served in the cafeteria, government directives to improve nutrition should help. The fitness platform should be helpful, if effective, as well. For example, making safer pathways for more kids to walk to school might encourage more movement, and school driven goals to increase physical activity might force gym back into the school day. Finally, attempting to solve the problem of food deserts is noble. But they’re going to have to make the healthy choices as affordable as the junk food.
Probably the best thing to come out of this Let’s Move initiative is a public discussion of our country’s health, diets, and family lifestyles. Raising healthy eating among our national priorities is a positive use of our governments resources and funds. Unfortunately, the cynic in me believes that unless the message is loudly conveyed about the consequences of obesity for our children, people won’t change. Habits are stubborn and require both a large carrot and, sadly, a sharp stick to break.
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There was once a printer that had a sign in his shop.
“Fast Printing,
Quality Printing,
Cheap Printing,
You can have any two.”
Culture and economics force our society to choose “fast and cheap” when it comes to our food. The lack of choosing quality food is what I believe is the major cause of childhood obesity. Either fast or cheap has to go.
Unfortunately, I think most families believe that they can’t afford to let either one go, and so quality is always sacrificed. Sad.