Michelle Obama launched the “Let’s Move” campaign to end childhood obesity Tuesday. While the Editorial Board knows the program will succeed to the same extent the “Just Say No” campaign did, we question the methods the first lady plans to use to fix the growing problem by 2020. (She thinks America can kick this habit in a decade? Really?)
Even the campaign’s official site admits the most difficult obstacle in creating a healthier nation is the lack of affordable and accessible nutritional food.
As any college student strapped for cash can testify, it’s difficult not to choose a Totino’s pizza over a navel orange when they both cost around a dollar.
Junk food is just cheap. Healthier food isn’t.
We don’t see how either Obama could help right that wrong, especially given a bad economy. We know the first lady was only thinking of the children when she launched the program, but she should have considered her timing, too.
We also object to the saccharine-sweet programming bound to result from the first lady’s cooperation with Disney in spreading the word about healthy lifestyles. As if the “very special episode” disease wasn’t bad enough, government-inspired Hannah Montana shows about working out sound cringe-worthy.
Unlike some people, we don’t see this program as propaganda. We just think it’ll make our little cousins and siblings annoying as hell when we explain why we haven’t been to the gym in a month.
