During the first year of her husband’s administration, Michelle Obama has been a highly visible presence who has lent support to various initiatives, but she has not had an active policy-making or leadership role. That changed last week when the White House announced that Mrs. Obama will lead a national effort to reduce childhood obesity in the United States. That is a worthwhile campaign that holds vast promise for improving the health and lives of American youngsters. The First Lady is ideally suited to lead it.
Mrs. Obama knows first-hand the possible dangers of childhood obesity. She’s spoken eloquently and forthrightly about her own experience with Sasha and Malia, her daughters. When Mrs. Obama worked full-time, she said, her kids ate too much fast food and other foods high in fat, sugar and salt. The result: Her children became “chubby,” often a precursor to the obesity that leads to health problems that start in childhood and that can last a lifetime.
Timely intervention by her kids’ doctor — who suggested a change in diet and exercise patterns was in order — helped Mrs. Obama make the right choices for her kids. A diet richer in fruits and vegetables, more attention to overall eating habits and an increase in exercise resolved the girls’ weight problem. Mrs. Obama’s willingness to discuss the problem openly without being preachy or moralistic makes her an ideal leader for the campaign aimed at eliminating childhood obesity within a generation.
The need for the campaign is real. Childhood obesity rates have tripled over the last decade. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study suggests that fully a third of the children born in 2000 eventually will develop diabetes, a disease closely tied to weight. The United States already spends about $150 billion a year to treat diabetes and other weight-related problems like high blood pressure and heart disease. That crippling cost-burden will soar higher if the trend toward obesity of contemporary youngsters is not reversed.
The “Let’s Move” campaign to reduce childhood obesity introduced last week by Mrs. Obama is well-designed. The educational campaign is accompanied by legislative proposals that complement the effort. The overall initiative has won the endorsement from several major corporate suppliers of school lunches — who pledged to work more diligently to reduce fat, sugar and salt in their meals. Beverage companies, particularly soft drink manufacturers, say they’ll do their part as well. Some promise to provide more informative, consumer-friendly labeling on their products. Those steps — along with proposed federal legislation to ban sugary sodas and fat-laden food from school vending machines — should bring welcome attention to the anti-obesity campaign.
So should a national effort by pediatricians to regularly measure their patients’ body mass index, an indicator of obesity. A public service campaign that pairs pro athletes — often positive role models for youngsters — and media companies to deliver messages about the need for exercise and encouraging “60 minutes of play a day” holds promise, as well.
To be sure, the best-meaning effort by the First Lady and worthy PR campaigns won’t end childhood obesity on their own. The problem is both specific — poor diet, lack of exercise — and systemic — a U.S. society in which beneficial eating and exercise habits are more often afterthoughts than a way of life.
Kids don’t exercise as much a their grandparents because the layout of the nation’s suburbs — where many kids live — is antithetical to exercise. There are no sidewalks, so a car is needed to complete the simplest errand. Free, unrestricted play and activity by kids is more an historical artifact that reality. In the inner city, stores stock relatively inexpensive fast and junk food, but usually don’t sell fresh produce at any price. Broad administrative and societal change is needed to address those issues.
Mrs. Obama’s willingness to take on what will be a time-consuming task is welcome. She’s made it clear she doesn’t expect miracles. She says, truthfully, that major and long-term changes in diet, in exercise and play patterns and in replacing sedentary lifestyles with more active ones are the best prescription for the problem. That’s a message that should prove beneficial to the nation, but only if the effort to reduce or end childhood obesity remains untainted by the partisan politics that often torpedo the best ideas that emerge from Washington.