First lady to launch campaign against obesity in children

February 8, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

WASHINGTON (AP) — By now, it is abundantly clear that Michelle Obama loves french fries.

The first lady talks about this “guilty pleasure” all the time, trying to ward off any notion that she is a nutrition nanny even as she cajoles Americans to eat better.

Now, her conversation with the public about the nation’s health and fitness is about to get a lot more pointed.

After laying the groundwork for nearly a year, she will launch a campaign on Tuesday against childhood obesity that she hopes will change the way millions of Americans eat, exercise, look and feel.

To succeed, she will have to take on powerful forces that have left one-third of children overweight:

Ubusy parents who hit the fast-food drive-thru rather than cook a balanced dinner.

Uschools where cafeteria meals compete with vending machines and a la carte lines stocked with soda and candy bars.

Ufood companies that spend billions hawking fatty snacks to children.

Upoor neighborhoods where nary a banana nor a head of broccoli can be found on store shelves.

Uthe screens — computer, TV, video — that keep kids off their bikes.

The first lady’s goal is ambitious: to put America on track to solve the childhood obesity problem in a generation. It’s a far cry from the days when Dolley Madison, the first first lady to associate herself with a specific cause, helped to found a District of Columbia home for orphaned girls.

“Thank God it’s not going to be solely up to me,” Obama said recently, stressing that the solution will require stepped-up effort from parents, schools, businesses, nonprofit groups, health professionals and governments.

To underscore that point, she’s bringing together Cabinet members, mayors, sports and entertainment figures, business leaders and more to announce the details of the administration’s effort. That will involve promoting healthier schools, increasing physical activity for kids, improving access to healthy foods and giving people more nutrition information.

Health advocates couldn’t be happier to have a popular first lady adopting childhood obesity as her cause. They’re also keenly aware of how difficult the problem will be to solve.

“You don’t just go from epidemic obesity to epidemic leanness,” says obesity expert Dr. David Katz, director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center.

Still, Katz says, Obama can provide the inspiration to help “shift the massive momentum of our society in the right direction.”

Lofty goals have come and gone before. A decade ago, the government’s “Healthy People” program set a 2010 target that just 5 percent of children would be overweight or obese. The most updated government figures, released last month, weighed in at 32 percent for 2007-2008. The childhood obesity rate has at least held steady in recent years, but at levels that still leave today’s children on track to die younger than their parents.

The first lady has prepared for the obesity campaign by falling asleep over briefing papers, consulting with legislators, Cabinet members and policy experts, and speaking about the challenges that overstressed parents face in doing right by their children. And, famously, by hula hooping on the South Lawn to promote the need to get kids moving.