Newspapers the world over are hailing Michelle Obama for her frank talk on childhood obesity, its causes and what we need to do to tackle it.
"It's time we all had a wake-up call. Our kids didn't do this to themselves. Our kids don't decide what's served to them at school or whether there's time for gym class or recess. Our kids don't choose to make food products with tons of sugar and sodium in super-sized portions, and then have those products marketed to them everywhere they turn. And no matter how much they beg for pizza, fries and candy, ultimately, they are not, and should not, be the ones calling the shots at dinnertime. We're in charge. We make these decisions." (http://bit.ly/9u2K6j)
This kind of statement, at a prearranged press event, is inevitably followed by thunderous applause. But are we really in charge? Do we really make these decisions?
It seems incongruous to me that the wife of the president should be tackling the problem from the same side as the rest of us, when she presumably has access to the ears of one of the most powerful men in the western world. Think about it: if our kids aren't the ones deciding, then who
is making these decisions? Are parents really the ones choosing "tons of sugar and sodium in super-sized portions?" Are parents the ones "calling the shots at dinnertime?
" The answer is yes and no, for while we are the ones who have to say 'no' to pizza for dinner, we as a society have stripped parents of a great deal of authority over their childrens' diets. And we as parents must assume some responsibility for allowing it to happen.
But let me back track: the seeds of the decisions that are making our children obese are not being made at the dinner table. The decision isn't even been made when a parent goes shopping. The decisions aren't even being made by that supermarket manager placing the order to stock the shelves. The people were pushing the buttons and turning the nozzles and driving the forklifts in the food factories are also not the ones making the decision ( we could say they're just following orders). No, the decisions are being made for us all in board rooms across the country, by people who can afford to circumvent the system that they themselves have created.
A couple of months ago I ran across a photograph of a younger Barack Obama teaching a class. What struck me was not that he was free of gray hairs, but what he was writing on the blackboard in front of him. The title of his diagram was "Relationships Built on Self Interest." He already understood the powers driving much of our society. And during his campaign he was the one who dared admit to the revolving door between business and government regulatory bodies that was creating a web of conflicts of interest so tangled that he himself seems incapable of dismantling them. And he promised us that he would stop this revolving door, where former agri-business executives assumed roles of responsibility within government agencies charged with regulating the selfsame businesses, and where people leaving these agencies find themselves offered lucrative positions in the same businesses.
I took heart when he took office and his first appointees seemed to buck this trend, and was nothing short of thrilled when the wind seemed to be changing, bringing with it proactive recalls driven by the FDA, rather than the empty gestured voluntary recalls. But the fresh wind of change seems to have lost some momentum. Appointees from business made it onto his lists after all, and recall notices from the FDA are leaning more toward the characteristic language and patterns that we know all too well.
Michelle Obama is proposing saving our kids by re-empowering parents. Indeed, she seems to be thinking along the same lines I was 10 years ago, when I had a small child to feed, and was unsatisfied by the choices being presented to me. My decisions at the supermarket were already made for me, so I had to find some place else to assert my parental choice. For me, it was a step by step process: I started by shopping the outside perimeter of the supermarket, reading labels, and asking questions, and eventually moved outside of the big box altogether. The gradual evolution has taken me to the point where even the coop seems to be a bit of a compromise, as I find I much prefer to press coins in the earthy palms of farmers' hands than swipe my debit card through a PIN pad device.
I and many like me are essentially doing an end run against the food industry (and they don't like it, judging from the rules they keep trying to get pushed through--think labeling). We're shopping at farmers' market, signing up for CSAs, and even planting vegetable gardens. I am very glad that Michelle Obama has started this conversation. And I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that she, like all the other strong, thinking mothers out there, is having this conversation with her husband. Because only if both parents are pulling in the same direction will the children be healthy.
