This is an excerpt from Obama's remarks to the AMA (h/t Daniel Bowman Simon):
The second step that we can all agree on is to invest more in preventive care so we can avoid illness and disease in the first place...
It also means cutting down on all the junk food that's fueling an epidemic of obesity - (applause) - which puts far too many Americans, young and old, at greater risk of costly, chronic conditions. That's a lesson Michelle and I have tried to instill in our daughters. As some of you know, we started a White House vegetable garden. I say "we" generously, because Michelle has done most of the work. (Laughter.) That's a lesson that we should work with local school districts to incorporate into their school lunch programs.
Michelle Obama (in a separate speech) also spoke about school lunches:
But government also has a role to play in this, as well. For so many kids, subsidized breakfasts and lunches are their primary meals of the day. It's what they count on. It's where they get most of their nutrition.
And the USDA's National School Lunch Program serves approximately 30 million meals each year to low-income* children. And because these meals are the main source of consistent nourishment for these kids, we need to make sure we offer them the healthiest meals possible.
So to make sure that we give all our kids a good start to their day and to their future, we need to improve the quality and nutrition of the food served in schools. We're approaching the first big opportunity to move this to the top of the agenda with the upcoming reauthorization of the child nutrition programs. In doing so, we can go a long way towards creating a healthier generation for our kids.
I'm glad the Obamas are for healthier school lunches, but if they wants to achieve that, Barack specifically needs to take the same kind of leadership on that that he's taking on health care reform. We need him out there making televised speeches to the School Nutrition Association about spending more - maybe even double - on each child's lunch. We need him to talk about not starving our schools of funds so they look to the lunch programs as money makers and serve the kids junk to get them to buy more food. And we need him to talk about how it's unrealistic to expect our nation to eat better if we aren't even producing the right amount of healthy foods in the first place.
If every single American wanted to eat the recommended amount of fruits & veggies every day, they couldn't - we don't grow enough. Kind of an obvious problem that we need to fix, huh? There's a bill (H.R.800) that would address some of the problem by allowing commodity farmers to grow fruits and veggies on their land. Right now, if you grow commodities that receive federal subsidies and you want to rotate your crops, you're not allowed to grow fruits and veggies on that land. This bill would allow you to do so. Not so surprisingly, it's supported by legislators from the midwest from both major political parties - and California farm groups like Blue Diamond Growers are out lobbying against it because they don't want any competition from midwestern farmers.
UPDATE: Ali from Gastronomalies just called my attention to this Maureen Dowd article on the Obamas' mixed messages about food. When they are in front of kids and doctors, they are for healthy eating. But they don't hesitate to take high profile trips to burger joints too. It reminds me of my friend's Dad who spent a lifetime telling my friend about the evils of pot... until one day he called him to ask, "Have you seen my stash? I can't find it." The problem isn't so much Barack and Michelle as it is our culture that views eating junk as being down to earth and fun. |
