The first lady of food, Michelle Obama, believes millions of families and parents are messing up the diets of their children, and she is promising to push her get-healthy “Let’s Move” agenda after she leaves the White House.
Revealing to Cooking Light magazine that her pediatrician first urged her to put Sasha and Malia on a better diet, Obama said, “Look, if I didn’t figure this out, I’m sure there are millions of families and parents who are getting it wrong.”
The magazine said that her legacy will be judged on how fit, or fat, future generations of kids are.
“Mrs. Obama will measure the success of Let’s Move! — and her legacy — against today’s generation of kindergartners; new healthy norms will mean that fresh vegetables, fruits and whole grains will be second nature by the time they’re in college. By then she’ll be long gone from the White House, but she plans on maintaining a public life committed to raising a nation of healthier children,” said the magazine.
And apparently Obama plans to influence that legacy by continuing on with her efforts. She concluded the interview this way:
“Because our goals are generational, clearly we won’t be done by the time we leave the White House. So we’re going to be thinking hard about ways that I can use my next platform as a way to keep shining a light on the things that we’re doing. If there’s one word that I could say about what we do in the future, it’s ‘more.’ It’s more of this. It’s finding more partners. It’s getting more schools to bring salad bars into their schools. It’s encouraging more communities to plant gardens. It’s including more of big industry to find ways to change or improve their products to meet these new demands. It’s getting more athletes to sign up and speak out to encourage kids to eat differently and to train differently. So it’s more.
“Because I think what we’re doing now is hitting a lot of the important pieces, but we’ve just got to keep lifting it up higher and higher. We can’t let this movement rest. We’re at an important peak right now. And a lot of people are listening. So we have to maximize that momentum and keep the pressure on so that we’re constantly moving toward a healthier nation.
“We owe it to our kids. They deserve the best that we can offer them. And when we know better, they do better. So our work isn’t done.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
