Michelle Obama has taken it upon herself to decide not only what children in the country will eat but what they can sell in fund raisers:
At Chapman School in Nebraska, resourceful students hawk pizza and cookie dough to raise money for school supplies, field trips and an eighth-grade excursion to Washington. They peddle chocolate bars to help fund the yearbook.
But the sales won’t be so sweet starting this fall. Campus bake sales—a mainstay of school fundraisers—are going on a diet. A federal law that aims to curb childhood obesity means that, in dozens of states, bake sales must adhere to nutrition requirements that could replace cupcakes and brownies with fruit cups and granola bars.
Jeff Ellsworth, principal of the kindergarten through eighth-grade school in Chapman, Neb., isn’t quite sure how to break the news to the kids. “The chocolate bars are a big seller,” said Mr. Ellsworth.
The restrictions that took effect in July stem from the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by first lady Michelle Obama and her “Let’s Move!” campaign. The law overhauled nutrition standards affecting more than 30 million children. Among the changes: fatty french fries were out, while baked sweet potato fries were deemed to be fine.
The law also required the U.S. Department of Agriculture to set standards for all food and beverages sold during the school day, which includes vending machines, snack carts and daytime fundraisers. It allowed for “infrequent” fundraisers, and states were allowed to decide how many bake sales they would have that didn’t meet nutrition standards.
Without state-approved exemptions, any treats sold would have to meet calorie, sodium, fat and other requirements. The law permits states to fine schools that don’t comply.
People aren’t happy with the Food Nazi:
According to a report from the National Resources Defense Council, close to 40 percent of food in the U.S. is never eaten, which is approximately $165 billion in waste. Liberals should be outraged, but Mrs. Obama and the administration’s mandates are adding to the problem of more food being thrown away at the schools.
In her recent New York Times editorial, Mrs. Obama even picked a fight with the beloved potato (my daughter’s favorite vegetable). She argues that “many women and children already consume enough potatoes.” Really? Are mashed potatoes that bad for you? Speak for yourself, Mrs. Obama. It is stressful enough for families these days, especially single moms who are working, raising children and figuring out what to make for dinner every night for their children. Women do not need the first lady or the Obama administration to tell them what and how to eat. The Republicans simply want to provide flexibility to low-income women who receive WIC benefits so that they are in charge of making food choices for their families.
Obama’s Diktat is costly and wasteful
As students flood Twitter with images of inedible slop, it’s clear that Michelle Obama’s government school lunch revamp is a costly failure. It’s time to get the feds out of kids’ lunch boxes.
The $12 billion federal student lunch program, which serves 30.7 million kids, is losing participants fast — more than a million just last year, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report. The reason: the first lady’s Healthy Hunger-free Kids Act, an act that has accomplished exactly the opposite of what it claimed it would — leaving hungry, angry, disgusted kids and dumpsters full of wasted food.
Kids have taken to Twitter to post photographs of the wretched results of the new federal guidelines that any school participating in the National School Lunch Program must follow to comply with the government-knows-best program for nutrition.
Meager burgers on soggy buns and sorry little skim milk cartons amid otherwise bare lunch trays, mystery meat, tiny little teaspoons of taco meat amid a few straggly cheese shreds on a massive tortilla, and tiny pebble-like chicken nuggets a cat wouldn’t eat are pretty much the result of calorie-limiting, one-size-fits-all, anything-but-buy-local, lunch programs.
I was in Newport Rhode Island recently and saw this in the lobby of our hotel:
ALL proceeds donated to ovarian cancer. Can’t have that. Not healthy. Michelle needs to squash it immediately.
Liberals want to control every aspect of your life. Under the Obama dictator partnership you might be a little more healthy and a little more physically fit, but you will not be free.
Next up: the ban on birthday cakes.
image courtesy of rightpunditry
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
@George Wells:
So you think the Justices of the SCOTUS are wise? Really? Frankly, Ruth Bader Ginsberg is one of the most illogical humans I have ever heard speak. Souter is just plain nuts.
So I guess when the SCOTUS ruled in Dred Scott, you think they were wise? How about Roe that was based on a penumbra located somewhere in the mind of a Justice? How about using foreign law for a ruling? Wise?
Of course, you will support the SCOTUS until they rule on an issue that doesn’t go your way. Then, you will be the first to demonize them.
Do you support the law that allows, nay, requires, a proprietor to deny service to someone who is drunk? Isn’t alcoholism a “mental” illness and shouldn’t that person’s rights be covered under the Americans With Disabilities Act? After all, it’s not the person’s fault they are a drunk, right?
Americans are denied service everyday; because they’re drunk, because they are not wearing shoes or a shirt, because of religious beliefs, because they don’t have proper I.D., because of many reasons. When the government involves itself in a private business, we are sliding down a very slippery slope.
@Bill #49:
“So, a platform plank in Virginia is “Republicans”?”
Say WHAT? My quote was from the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, not a platform plank. It remains the law in Virginia until the appeal of the ruling from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals is answered by the SCOTUS.
Over 100 million people currently live in states that allow gay marriage, but the number of people who can legally enter into civil unions is a small fraction of that number, no matter what some localities in Texas may have done.
“Republicans don’t feel it’s their business to mandate it one way or another.”
Gross misrepresentation of the facts, Bill. Republicans pushed DOMA, which the SCOTUS has partially overturned because of its expressed animus – hostility toward gays. Republicans also pushed for a constitutional amendment forbidding gay marriage anywhere in the USA. Remember? Your boy Bush supported it vigorously, even when congress didn’t. So I guess that all of those Republicans who DIDN’T feel that it was their business to mandate it one way or the other were a “silent majority?” I don’t believe that I’ve ever heard that explanation before. (Laughing)
“so don’t try to force my embracing of your lifestyle.”
Oh, I’m not. Of course I’d like your support, but I’m realistic enough to recognize that you won’t be responding rationally to my logical explanations of the Law or any of the other arguments I offer. I’m here exercising my rights of free speech exactly as abortion opponents do at the perimeters of abortion clinics. Neither are welcome, both are within their rights. You don’t HAVE to be happy about that, but you should be. It’s your Constitution at work protecting EVERYBODY’S rights.
@retire05 #51:
Yes, I think that the SCOTUS judges are wise, even when they make mistakes. They have a long record of overturning themselves, and I think that more often than not their second opinion is better than the first. Whether you like it or not, they ARE the court of last resort. They are also the last defense against the tyranny of the majority – in their absence you would find the majority’s whims fickle, unpredictable and terribly ill-informed. (Remember the influence Comedy Central has on elections?) Don’t YOU think Scalia’s brilliant?
“Do you support the law that allows, nay, requires, a proprietor to deny service to someone who is drunk? Isn’t alcoholism a “mental” illness?”
I support requiring bartenders to deny service. I would also support stationing police in bar parking lots and allowing them to shoot the tires out on cars that drunks tried to drive away in. Alcoholism is an addiction, and as it fails to respond to most treatment in the same way that other drug addictions respond, the law enforcement procedures should be similar. Drunks are a lethal road hazard and require aggressive control. They may become disabled because of their addiction, and they may deserve our sympathy, but their dangerous actions deserve no forgiveness.
“Americans are denied service everyday; because they’re drunk, because they are not wearing shoes or a shirt, because of religious beliefs, because they don’t have proper I.D., because of many reasons.”
As long as there is at least a rational basis for such denial of services, and that denial is applied uniformly, equal protection guarantees are not jeopardized. But when you begin to discriminate as you are suggesting a right to do, that is a different matter. As long as the 7-11 clerk refuses to sell beer to youngsters, there isn’t a problem. It’s the law. But when they refuse to sell beer to a guy with a proper ID and a pink scarf, then the establishment is asking for trouble, and in our litigious society, trouble it will get. You play be the rules. If you don’t like them, you try to change them by legal means. That’s what gay people are doing. Sure, some are overstepping the bounds in their “enthusiasm,” but you have the Law on your side in seeking redress.
Now that several courts have finally decided AGAINST gay marriage, the legal conflict is created that will require the SCOTUS to address the issue. Even if they decide against us, we will already have the states we now have, and they just MIGHT give us the whole ball of wax. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait!
@George Wells:
Overstepping the bounds? That’s what you call what the radical evil gay movement is doing?
My God, man, do you have anything between your ears beside hair?
@retire05 #54:
You don’t honestly believe that there haven’t been violations of rights (violence, etc.) on BOTH sides of this issue, right? Gay people who have been oppressed their entire lives are now finally fighting back, and while I abhor extreme (evil) behavior, I understand where it is coming from. Perhaps you are such a perfect Christian that you could have turned the other cheek after suffering a lifetime of abuse, but there are many who cannot. I’m glad to see that you got over your compassionate phase…
@George Wells:
Two wrongs do not make a right.
@retire05 #56:
“You don’t honestly believe that there haven’t been violations of rights (violence, etc.) on BOTH sides of this issue, right?”
“Two wrongs do not make a right.”
EXACTLY! But I’m not the one blaming the other side (the “radical evil gay movement”) as if your side is above reproach.
@retire05:
I offered the following compromise on gay marriage because:
1. The issue remains harmfully divisive to the nation in spite of the astonishing progress gay marriage advocates have made in obtaining public support for it.
2. This compromise would seem to satisfy at least some of the concerns of both extreme positions on the gay marriage issue.
3. Gay marriage advocates have ALREADY gained much more than they had expected.
Much has been made of the benefits of marriage and of society’s “interest” in promoting procreation. I can see an opportunity to extend at least SOME of the benefits of marriage to gay people –through a national civil union vehicle – while at the same time making procreation IN WEDLOCK more attractive. This second objective could be accomplished by massively increasing the deduction for dependent children but requiring the parents to be married – or united in civil union – in order to receive the increased deduction. This would discourage out-of-wedlock pregnancies but encourage adoption in addition to married childbirth. The lost tax revenues would be paid for by increasing the marriage penalty. This in turn would have the effect of reducing the marriage rate among all groups not busy raising children, which, according to at least some of the states opposing gay marriage, is the principle reason for marriage in the first place and the sole state interest in the institution.
This compromise preserves the “institution” of marriage for heterosexuals, gives gay couples legal rights, promotes married procreation and is revenue-neutral. With so many appealing consequences, why do you totally ignore such an option?