“A FAVORITE OF THE OBAMA FAMILY”
by Sharon Rondeau
Michelle developed the “Let’s Move!” initiative designed to engage children and their caregivers in leading healthier lives and “pursue their dreams” involving changing certain eating habits. The Let’s Move! website states:
At the launch of the initiative, President Barack Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum creating the first-ever Task Force on Childhood Obesity to conduct a review of every single programs and policies [sic[ relating to child nutrition and physical activity and develop a national action plan to maximize federal resources and set concrete benchmarks toward the First Lady’s national goal. The Task Force recommendations focus on the five pillars of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! initiative:
- Creating a healthy start for children
- Empowering parents and caregivers
- Providing healthy food in schools
- Improving access to healthy, affordable foods
- Increasing physical activity
Both Barack and his wife believe that “elected officials from all levels of government” can influence children’s choices in order to prevent obesity. One of the challenges Michelle Obama believes has impacted the increase in obesity among schoolchildren is that “Thirty years ago, kids ate just one snack a day, whereas now they are trending toward three snacks, resulting in an additional 200 calories a day. And one in five school-age children has up to six snacks a day.”
Michelle also cited larger portions of food and sweetened drinks served at restaurants as a cause of increasingly overweight American children.
With the Obamas’ support, the 111th Congress passed the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act” in December 2010 designed “to reauthorize nutrition programs, and for other purposes” which included changes to “National School Lunch Program.” CNN reported that Barack Obama signed the bill, described as “a sweeping overhaul of child nutrition standards Monday, enacting a law meant to encourage better eating habits in part by giving the federal government more authority to set standards for food sold in vending machines and elsewhere on school grounds.”
The bill is considered Michelle’s “signature” legislation, with one CNN anchor claiming that Michelle Obama “signed the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act into law.” In June 2011, Michelle sponsored a “Recipes for Healthy Kids competition” lauded by Tom Vilsack, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Grants are also made available for the creation of “school breakfast programs” as well as increased participation in existing programs. Summer food service programs also receive funding under the legislation.
On Tuesday, Michelle’s “Let’s Move” program encompassed the White House grounds when 50 Girl Scouts “camped out” on the front lawn until thunder and lightning forced the participants inside.
Families whose children do not qualify for free or reduced lunches are reportedly paying more for school lunches than before Public Law 111-296 was passed. Similarly, Americans who do not qualify for federal health care subsidies under Barack Obama’s “signature” health care law known as “Obamacare” report paying higher premiums than before under health plans which were canceled.
Michelle touted the new school lunch program as providing more fruits and vegetables, lower sodium levels and fat, more whole grains, and fewer empty calories to America’s public school children in an 850-calorie count. However, some school systems have reported that more food is being discarded than before the new regulations took effect and that children’s appetites are not satiated by the foods served, resulting in difficulty concentrating.
On October 2, 2012, The Washington Times reported, “Students nationwide are boycotting new federal school lunch rules, reverting to brown-bagging it in a mini-revival of individual freedom among the milk-drinking crowd.”
In response to a 2014 Republicans proposal to allow school systems to withdraw from the current school lunch program if they can show it has not been cost-effective, Michelle said that “the new standards are working” to reduce the number of overweight and obese children and that “the last thing that we can afford to do right now is play politics with our kids’ health.”
But Michelle Obama is a fan of the very foods she has banned from public school cafeterias. In an article dated November 30, 2008 in the Rockford (IL) Register Star, Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia are described as “frequent visitors” to a Des Moines, IA restaurant, Baby Boomers Cafe, specifically for its “chocolate-chunk cookies.”
The article, titled “Obama’s Fave Cookie Can Be Your Fave Cookie, Too,” begins, “Want an example of the change Barack Obama is bringing to the country? Check out cookie sales at Baby Boomers Cafe. Ever since word spread about the president-elect and his family’s fondness for Baby Boomers’ chocolate-chunk cookies, the small downtown restaurant can’t make them fast enough.”
The writer, Amy Lorentzen, related that Baby Boomers owner Rodney Maxfield reported a surge in cookie orders after the Obamas’ “affection for the confection” became public. According to the article, while the Obama family spent time in Iowa the previous month, “Obama’s staff ordered about a dozen cookies for the family.”
Comments about Baby Boomers’ chocolate-chunk cookies acknowledge that “Obama loves these cookies.” Another comments reads, “Going for more than one gets a little greasy for the belly. We did have the chocolate chip cookies that are rumored to be enjoyed by the Obama girls. They were good.”
Des Moines’ Channel 13 reported that “Baby Boomers’ chocolate chip cookies became famous the world over after word got out they were a favorite of the Obama family.” At the same time, in April 2012, Baby Boomers closed its doors in Iowa and moved to Denver, CO.
In a January 2009 interview with Fox News, Maxfield said of his popular confection, “You have two and then you decide to have four. It’s a good cookie.”