Michelle Obama tackles restaurants

The next step in the obesity front?

By Culinate staff

February 24, 2011

In January, First Lady Michelle Obama helped convince Walmart to offer healthier food in its stores. Next up on her agenda of fighting childhood obesity: restaurants. As the New York Times reported earlier this month, Obama wants the nation’s eateries to “adopt her goals of smaller portions and children’s meals that include healthy offerings like carrots, apple slices and milk instead of French fries and soda.”

Restaurants aren’t Obama’s only target; as the article noted, Obama has worked comprehensively on childhood nutrition and health:

But as she uses her public platform to persuade children to eat healthier and exercise more, Mrs. Obama and her team are also quietly pressing the levers of industry and government. Over the past year she has become involved in many aspects of the nation’s dietary habits, exerting her influence over nutrition policy.

Her team has worked with beverage makers to design soda cans with calorie counts and is deeply involved in a major remake of the government’s most recognizable tool for delivering its healthy-eating message: the food pyramid.

Mrs. Obama persuaded Congress to require schools to include more fruits and vegetables in the lunches they offer, and she encouraged lawmakers to require restaurants to print nutrition information on menus, a provision that wound up in President Obama’s landmark health care law.

You start out with a kitchen garden on the White House lawn, and look where you get.