The debate heated up last month as Congress was considering a $4.5 billion childhood nutrition program, backed by Michelle Obama, that expands eligibility for school meals programs, establishes nutrition standards for all foods sold in schools and provides a six-cent increase for each school lunch to help cafeterias serve healthier meals. The bill cleared the Senate unanimously in August and easily passed the House, 264-157, earlier this month. – Palin takes hit from the right for picking food fight with Michelle Obama
With an an “estimated 34.2% of U.S. adults aged 20 years and over are overweight, 33.8% are obese, and 5.7% are extremely obese,” according to the CDC, First Lady Michelle Obama’s quiet perseverance on childhood obesity, diet and healthier life choices was the most important campaign waged in 2010. Entitled “Let’s Move,” Mrs. Obama is the heroine of the year for taking it on.
It’s simply a bonus that she made Sarah Palin look like a fool while doing it.
“Where are the s’mores ingredients?” the sharp-elbowed hockey mom growled in Sunday’s episode of her outdoorsy TLC show “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” “This is in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert,” Palin said mockingly as she rummaged through her kitchen cupboards for graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate. – Sarah Palin mocks Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign
With Palin’s popularity plummeting, she may have to hold on to her 2010 Tea Party midterm victory, which made her the obvious “Person of the Year,” as her biggest hurrah. The smarter move for Palin, which should have been a no brainer for a politician needing to expand her base, would have been to embrace First Lady Michelle Obama’s kids’ health campaign. But for whatever reason the idiocy of her advisers seems to revolve around contrarianism for the sake of it, even when what she’s railing against is wiser than what she’s advocating. It’s this stubbornness to embrace a good idea even if it’s not yours that gives us a peek into Sarah’s deep-seated insecurity. It’s one reason she could be dangerous if allowed to rise further, as she possesses the same unawareness that George W. Bush had that got us into a self-defeating war in Iraq, with Sarah’s preoccupation being Iran instead.
The fact is that though there are undoubtedly illnesses and infections that come out of the blue, the majority of our health ills are self-inflicted, many coming straight from our own diets, as well as the stresses of our life we let get out of control. A simple act of changing your diet is a beginning, as long as you realize it’s a lifestyle choice at its foundation, which will inevitably also attack the stress you’re living. I know this through my own life and the journey I began in my late teens to become healthier and more in control over my health. It began by curing myself of migraines, with other benefits of a healthier diet a contagion of positive manifestations.
No one has to be fat, out of shape, unhealthy, laden with mood swings or at the whim of outside forces.
First Lady Michelle Obama has quietly worked to begin to revolutionize thinking on childhood obesity, which has the added benefit of instilling self-control and discipline in one area of a person’s life that impacts all others, too.
Everyone should stand with her, but also take another step by taxing sugary drinks and sodas, which are fat breeders and mood enhancers that don’t do anything good for young people. Fighting the soft drink industry is tough work, but someone should take them on.
From Fred Hiatt, who gets this one correct:
For the nation, it could be bankrupting. Obesity and its attendant ills already may add as much as $147 billion to health-care costs each year, one-tenth of the nation’s medical bill, a figure that is certain to rise. And the Army reports that one in four young people is too fat to serve.
Anyone who has been at an airport recently can see the problem for yourself.
We are a fat, lazy, overeating nation.
It’s costing us, including through our health care plans, because we pay for the illnesses of people who don’t have the willpower to take control over their own life through their eating, which is the strongest area of prevention of disease each of us actually can control.
Now if Mrs. Obama could just get Pres. Obama to stop smoking for good.
As for what you can do for your own health as the New Year approaches, make the decision to join a gym in January. Get your cardio up and your heart pumping. Working out will also help with the stress that’s killing you. It’s the absolute best thing you can do for those who love you.
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