{"id":328373,"date":"2010-02-16T19:41:47","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T00:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.szone.us\/f95\/obamas-food-america-another-flip-flop-39512\/"},"modified":"2010-02-16T19:41:47","modified_gmt":"2010-02-17T00:41:47","slug":"the-obamas-and-food-in-america-another-flip-flop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/328373","title":{"rendered":"The Obamas and Food in America: Another Flip-Flop?"},"content":{"rendered":"
On 02.16.10 11:30 AM posted by Allie Winegar Duzett<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last week, First Lady Michelle Obama launched a campaign against childhood obesity<\/a>, which is interesting considering President Barack Obama’s past statements on hunger in America.<\/p>\n

In November of 2009 \u0097 only three short months ago \u0097 President Obama \u0093reacted with concern\u0094 at a report that Americans are suffering \u0093record levels\u0094 of \u0093food insecurity,\u0094 according to a report<\/a> from the Boston Globe.* President Obama was quoted as saying that \u0093it is particularly troubling that there were more than 500,000 families in which a child experienced hunger multiple times over the course of the year.\u0094* In his statement, the President committed to \u0093reversing the trend of rising hunger.\u0094<\/p>\n

\u0093In addition, a bill I signed into law last month invests $85 million in new strategies to prevent children from experiencing hunger in the summer,\u0094 President Obama said.<\/p>\n

President Obama\u0092s remarks drastically differ from those of his wife, who recently stated<\/a> that obesity is now a threat to national security since obesity is \u0093one of the most common disqualifiers for military service.\u0094* CNSNews reports<\/a> on how the First Lady plans to combat this national security threat:<\/p>\n

Some of the goals include ending what Obama referred to as \u0093food deserts\u0094 with a $400 million a year \u0093Healthy Food Financing Initiative,\u0094 which will bring grocery stores to low-income neighborhoods and \u0093help places like convenience stores carry healthier food options.\u0094<\/p>\n

Mrs. Obama also plans to have the government spend over $10 billion to feed even more children through government programs, under the Childhood Nutrition Act.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So which is it?* Is the real problem here hunger, or is it obesity?<\/p>\n

According to<\/a> the Heritage Foundation\u0092s Robert Rector, \u0093the major dietary problem facing poor Americans is too much, not too little, food.\u0094* He goes on to explain that while it would be nice for Americans to stop drinking so much soda pop, and start exercising more, \u0093simply expanding the Food Stamp program would not accomplish that goal. What is required is a very difficult effort to change food preferences.\u0094<\/p>\n

Can a First Lady make a difference in changing America\u0092s food preferences?* If her greatest idea right now is expanding the Childhood Nutrition Act to feed even more children \u0097 in essence, expanding the Food Stamp program, making more food more available to already apparently obese children \u0097 it appears as though her plan is likely to fail.* In fact, not only may it fail, it may also be a $10 billion waste of money for Americans everywhere, both obese and not.<\/p>\n

Of course, the best part is that both President and Mrs. Obama have the same solutions to their respective problems with America\u0092s food situation: spend more money, and make more people dependent on the government for food.* Apparently with them every problem has the same solution.<\/p>\n

At least they\u0092re predictable.<\/p>\n

Allie Winegar Duzett currently is a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit:*http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/about\/departments\/ylp.cfm<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/16\/…her-flip-flop\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 02.16.10 11:30 AM posted by Allie Winegar Duzett Last week, First Lady Michelle Obama launched a campaign against childhood obesity, which is interesting considering President Barack Obama’s past statements on hunger in America. In November of 2009 \u0097 only three short months ago \u0097 President Obama \u0093reacted with concern\u0094 at a report that Americans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}