Bad Legislators Make FAT KIDS
I applaud Ms. Obama for her Let's Move campaign. I do.
There is a danger, however, of Let's Move ending up just as silly a joke as Mrs. Reagan's Just Say No campaign if social marketing isn't backed by public policy and legislation.
When it comes to "eating healthy" one might as well jump right into the "which religion is better?" cesspool - as both yield the same inconclusive battle of argumentative ideology.
Our children don't need our ideology. They need fresh food.
Kids don't need prescriptive eating rules such as less fructose, or less fat, or more protein, or South Beach, or Atkins, or Weight Watchers. They need unadulterated food - real food - not man-made, processed food that is super cheap because most of it is made in a laboratory somewhere.
I also want to caution that this is NOT a problem that can be solved overnight. Policy change takes time and we should approach the incorporation of fresh food into children's diets as a systematic strategic plan of complete governmental policy overhaul.
I tire of those who bang the drum of childhood nutrition utopia who aren't really helping the matter, demanding instant widespread overhauls without understanding that the entire system has to be modified without collapsing, and who are currently as obstructionist as Strom Thurmond or Joseph McCarthy or Mitch McConnell.
Here are 5 government policies we can implement to help make Let's Move successful:
- Increase support for farmers and modify the ridiculous corn commodity structure that creates an impossible pricing-to-market structure for FOOD & DAIRY FARMERS. Give federal dollars to a farmer who actually grows FOOD - edible food? What a bloody brilliant idea.
- Create legislation that makes fruits and vegetables affordable to most families. I cringe when hear that feeding kids healthier starts at home. In this economic recession where most families can only afford to feed their kids once or twice a day, I don't blame ANYONE for choosing to give their kids 10 Oreos for 950 calories for $.50, over 10 carrots for 250 calories for $1.50. The 5 A Day Fruit & Vegetable campaign is a MARKETING CAMPAIGN not a standard by which to measure good or bad parenting. Something is very wrong with this picture, and feeding kids healthier starts in the Farm Bill, not at American dinner tables. Blame Senators, not working moms.
- Increase funding to schools so that they can raise the amount that they spend per child/ per meal. Duh. What is the average now, less than $2/child/meal? Food Service Directors, just like Mom, are forced to serve Oreos too.
- Create a US Ban on food advertising to kids under 12 years old and between the hours of 7am - 10pm. The EU has been doing this for awhile, and in the light of massive research proving that "seeing is believing" for kids who don't have their cause-effect differentiators in place yet, Spain is following. What are WE doing over here. Oh . . . . . nothing. Let's show kids what a healthy lunch is on TV (pizza rolls) and then try to feed them a decent dinner (chicken with mashed sweet potatoes) and complain to our friends at our social gatherings that our kids are such picky eaters we've given up cooking for them as the only thing they'll eat are pizza rolls.
- Create MORE funding for Know your Farmer, Know your Food initiatives so that communities and school districts and make learning about agriculture, farming, and food, with annual field trips to local farms a normal and integral part of the curriculum. What does it say about any anti-obesity campaigns when 85% of our children can't find a carrot in a field? Why? Because somewhere in the last 50 years we forgot to mention that carrots grow underground. How in the hell can we expect a child to eat more carrots when they have no idea what one really is?
I'm skeptical to think that Mrs. Obama's Let's Move campaign can actually be successful against the tsunami tide of industry lobbyists who grease the hands of our politicians.
I'll stand for a moment, and applaud Mrs. Obama for trying to do the right thing. And then I'll go back to working in the trenches supporting my friends like Chef Tim Cipriano of New Haven Public Schools who beats this drum every day, and I'll keep my fingers crossed that perhaps Mrs. Obama can actually positively affect federal food policy.
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