RSS Feed MenuEvery First Lady is obliged to tackle some trendy and media-inflated crisis. For Hillary Clinton it was healthcare. Laura Bush focused on literacy. Michelle Obama wants to end the dread childhood obesity “epidemic.” Perhaps because the federal government has shown such skill in combating similar issues — such as our nation’s failing public schools — Mrs. Obama believes that it is the best institution to tackle our expanding waistlines. (That the federal government cannot tighten its own belt is beside the point.)
Despite the fact that Mrs. Obama took personal responsibility for her own children’s near-miss with childhood obesity, the First Lady believes that the vast majority of Americans could use the beneficent hand of the state to drag their own children back from the brink. To do this she proposes that the federal government do what it does best: spend lots of money. To do that, President Obama has proposed that the government form a task force to see which spending project will sound the most appealing to voters.
A few of the ideas floated include:
- Working with the American Academy of Pediatrics to encourage its 60,000 members to check the severely out-dated Body Mass Index (BMI) at each child’s visit, and give out “kid-friendly prescriptions” for healthy, active lifestyles. Kids will fill this prescription by convincing their parents that “outside” is dangerous and that what the family really needs to stay healthy is a Wii.
- $400 million in tax credits drawn from the current budget surplus will go to grocery stores to form state-sponsored monopolies in “food deserts” (areas of the country where there is no easy access to grocery stores). This is deemed much more efficient than scaling back zoning laws and allowing Wal-Mart to set up shop in said “food deserts” because Wal-Mart’s prices are simply much too low and of course because people who write these laws really don’t like shopping there.
- A new foundation will be created “made up of existing foundations and groups to monitor the campaign.” Think of it as a super-foundation (or a super-healthy-foundation). Perhaps we should form a second committee first, however, just in case the first committee isn’t quite up to the task.
- $10 billion over 10 years for the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, which would basically reward the most well-connected health food industry lobbyists around the country to provide healthy, free and reduced-priced school meals for kids. Because again, allowing private companies to run school cafeterias would be far, far too efficient.
- Another $25 million would go to schools in the cleverest legislators’ districts to help renovate school kitchens and replace deep fryers with free-range community gardens.
Now, you might be wondering how these steps will end childhood obesity in a mere twenty years as Mrs. Obama has ambitiously stated as her plan’s goal–a time frame which also conveniently sits outside her tenure as First Lady. You might also wonder how healthier school food will trim down our children if they continue to eat bags of potato chips at home while lounging for hours in front of the television. Perhaps the lady doth protest too much, given the shaky evidence that there is any such childhood obesity “epidemic” to begin with.
More importantly, you might be asking yourself how a highly centralized solution that consists mainly of throwing money at a problem could possibly succeed where parents, schools, and previous administrations have all failed.
What you don’t realize is that this is only one front in the larger war on obesity. Calling it a war is, after all, the only way to really do battle with all these pudgy, sedentary children. Michelle Obama can play general, and we can all play soldier. Chips and cheeseburgers and trans fats can be the enemy combatants.
How can we do our part to help Michelle Obama and Uncle Sam?
Well I have a modest proposal for the First Lady that is entirely unique to the war on obesity. It involves placing “caps” on the amount of calories food manufacturers are allowed to put in their food products. It also sets up a system of “calorie credits” which can be bought and then traded by both food manufacturers or guilty midnight-snackers on the free market Federal Calorie Exchange. Let’s call it, for lack of a better phrase, “cap and trade.”
This would allow producers of healthy food to sell their calorie credits to candy peddlers and fast food chains. Eventually the high-calorie producers would find that their products were too cost-prohibitive to manufacture, and consumers would turn to cheaper and healthier food like the affordable stuff they sell at Whole Foods. Surely this would never lead to food in general growing much more expensive, and would have no averse effects on the working poor whatsoever. And if it did, we could always set up a public food option.
Sure, congress will wheel and deal and make certain that the food manufacturers in their districts won’t be hit with low caps, or that they’ll start out with enough calorie credits to basically render the program inert, but that’s not the point. Savvy businesses and their representatives will skirt the rules, find loopholes, and turn the program into a slush fund for special interests. But this misses the larger issue.
This is war, and we need to do something quick. For the children.
nancyanny // Feb 13, 2010 at 7:46 am
Uhhhh, Mr. Cain… the CDC does say there’s an epidemic…
http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html
the tone of this entire article is entirely too combative. To try to quash another real problem in the country by using nasty terminology to manipulate readers ire isn’t clever. I do agree any monies given by the fed govt to states will likely be misused — by the politicians, not the people. Perhaps this article should address human nature and its tendency toward greed, and the more money you make the more you want…
How the ideologues can continue to bash any good the “opposition” is doing is tiresome, my right and left friends agree on this. The media serves to promote emotional responses, politicians as well. This article was written when the author must have been in the throes of a passionate paranoiac episode.
If you take a look at the CDC link, you will see, the obesity rates have gone up between 1985 and 2008 severely, esp in the south east (hmmm, these are also the states that have the highest percentage of welfare recipients, and the most republican leaders for the last 30 yrs). What correlation can be made between obesity, poverty and republican rule you might ask and in turn investigate why these people have far less than the rest of the country (you’re on your own, but education doesn’t matter, just pull your bootstraps and you’ll do just fine seems to be the philosophy), in meantime all their voters get fatter and less educated. Good luck to them…
The correlation then between obesity and medical costs grows — if any administration, R or D, would address this issue, it can only be a good thing. We here in the USofA should be more concerned about this, because it’s only costing ALL of us more in tax dollars to help care for these health risks. If you disagree with the way this Obama admin’s handling it, sure that’ s alright and understandable, but guess what, HE WON, Palin didn’t, so….
Greed is not good. Greed is not good. Say it with me. Helping people out of the goodness of your heart, that is how we as a species will make it through this episode of hate and fear and paranoia that the OTHER SIDE is going to DRIVE THIS COUNTRY INTO THE GROUND! Well, it’s already been driven there by tax breaks, we’ve nothing left in our coffers because nobody wants to put money into it, so… guess we should just all become armed because poverty creates desperate people. I’ve never seen someone starving just lay down and die…
Newbigtech // Feb 13, 2010 at 9:43 am
She was rockion the Beer Gut! Hey get these people out of our bedrooms, away from our children, and away from the buffet line.
If Mrs. Obama wishes to start a yoga class or weight lifting class on MSNBC…. that is her business.
If I choose to not work out, or tend to over eat, that is my business.
It’s America, Not Russia…..
teabag // Feb 13, 2010 at 10:43 am
Newbigtech // Feb 13, 2010 at 9:43 am
Enjoy your heart attack, I hope you have good health insurance because I sure don’t want to pay for your care.
kevin47 // Feb 13, 2010 at 11:08 am
Nancy,
Just because the government is trying to do something good, or has slapped a “this is good” sticker on its initiatives, doesn’t mean that the solution is worthy of praise. You already conceded government will misuse the funds, and it will, to enrich powerful constituencies. Unionized grocery stores will get a lift (or be created from whole cloth).
Never mind that government helped create the epidemic in the first place.
What you are saying is that we should disregard all of that, and simply applaud the effort because it addresses something important.
“If you take a look at the CDC link, you will see, the obesity rates have gone up between 1985 and 2008 severely, esp in the south east (hmmm, these are also the states that have the highest percentage of welfare recipients, and the most republican leaders for the last 30 yrs)”
Hmmm, no they’re not. D.C. and Rhode Island rank 1 and 2 in caseloads per capita. The reddest states are all near the bottom. I don’t quite agree with your insinuation that the relationship between welfare and obesity is causal. Either way, you have hardly argues for more government intervention.
More-so, I would hazard to guess that the obesity discrepancy has its roots in culture. The South has different cuisine, and different eating habits. If it’s Republicans making them fat, then why is Idaho one of the leanest states in the nation?
“you might ask and in turn investigate why these people have far less than the rest of the country”
The same trend holds true for unemployment rates, by and large, as for welfare caseloads. Maybe you should do some investigating yourself, why do YOU think red states are doing better than blue states in these metrics.
“If you disagree with the way this Obama admin’s handling it, sure that’ s alright and understandable, but guess what, HE WON, Palin didn’t, so….”
So… What? Be quiet? Cease dissent? No thank you.
Also, it’s pretty damn ridiculous to accuse anyone on this site of wishing Palin were president.
“I’ve never seen someone starving just lay down and die…”
So, in conclusion, starvation is the problem. Wait, what?
kevin47 // Feb 13, 2010 at 11:15 am
“Enjoy your heart attack, I hope you have good health insurance because I sure don’t want to pay for your care.”
So, if we put government in charge of health care insurance, does that provide an in-road for it to control our diets? That seems to be the consequence of your little retort above.
teabag // Feb 13, 2010 at 11:36 am
Nope Kevin47.
meant if he ends up in the emergency room without insurance we all pay for it. I guess you think the costs just magically disappear.
sinz54 // Feb 13, 2010 at 2:11 pm
teabag:
Even if he has Blue Cross, all those other Blue Cross policyholders end up paying for his heart attack. But he suffers no financial penalty himself.
With automobile insurance, if you have too many accidents, your premium goes way up.
With life insurance, if you smoke, you pay a higher premium.
The problem with health insurance is that unlike auto and life insurance, insurers are not allowed to charge more for risky behavior.
I would support having obese people pay a higher premium (surcharge) on their health insurance.
Would you?
Mandos // Feb 13, 2010 at 2:30 pm
No, because weight loss attempts have a five-year failure rate of 95%, and the pattern may actually be set in childhood.
teabag // Feb 13, 2010 at 2:45 pm
“I would support having obese people pay a higher premium (surcharge) on their health insurance.
Would you?”
Yes, though it would be difficult to judge the whys and wherefores of the decision making process. It’s pretty easy in the Auto insurance market, things are more black and white. Not quite so much in the health insurance market. Unless you just blanket hike the premiums of smokers and the overweight.
Plus most are on group plans through an employer, so you would have to go to individual plans and loose the employer based benefits. Which I understand is in the Paul Ryan plan which includes privatizing Social Security and doing away with Medicare.
jakester // Feb 14, 2010 at 12:23 am
Wow, this man offers not one intelligent idea at all. Does he think that the food deserts, if that is a problem can all be solved by building more Walmarts? Like Walmart is going to leap at a chance to build in utterly depressed urban areas with loads of box stores in the safer, richer suburbs or in sparsely populated rural zones? Why not come up with a good idea of his own instead of the usual Beckian paranoia?
I got a good idea, lets build, not even that, but set aside more land sidewalks and paths connecting stores, schools , churches and homes and encouraging people to walk or ride a bike. That might also cut some pollution and make people get more social too instead of doing the usual all american thing of driving if over 75 yards to get into a drive through at Dunkin Donuts. Walk and ride your bike instead of driving your fat butts everywhere, that can only help us all!
kevin47 // Feb 15, 2010 at 11:27 am
“Like Walmart is going to leap at a chance to build in utterly depressed urban areas with loads of box stores in the safer, richer suburbs or in sparsely populated rural zones?”
In many instances, Walmart (and Target) have already leaped, but have been thwarted by union interests.
But the factors contributing to food deserts are more complicated. Grocery stores rely on produce departments as loss leaders. Produce and dairy guarantee repeat business, simply because they spoil and must be consumed on a short cycle.
Alas, demand for produce is virtually non-existent in many large urban areas. Wealthier urban-dwellers prefer to travel for groceries rather than have an ugly store in their neighborhood. Poorer people simply choose to fill up on junk because it tastes good and it’s easy to prepare.
By my lights, a better solution would be to forbid the use of food stamps on certain foods, while facilitating the building of Walmarts and Aldis (Aldi is Trader Joes for poor people) in urban areas. Alas, anti-poverty groups and union interests will balk.
As far as building more sidewalks and bike paths, that is a very, very expensive way to combat obesity. The return on investment just isn’t there. Some people just don’t want to ride a bike.