In War Truth is the First Casuality - ~Aeschylus

Now that the recession is over, notably without stimulation, we can all breathe a huge sigh of relief. The worst is behind us and we have the Father, the Son and Barak Obama to thank. Unless of course you are obese or hungry or both - then brace yourself for the "good war" on obesity and hunger. And in this war truth is definitely the first casualty. Barak and Michelle Obama are determined to save you from yourself by insinuating themselves into how much and what you and your kids eat so that you won't be hungry or fat or both.

The family is an unwelcome intrusion in the war on hunger and obesity among the "it takes a village crowd". This is certainly true in Boulder where the food renegade Ann Cooper was drafted, from Berkley, CA no less!, to serve as a general in the good war to save Boulder's children from the bad and wrong food choices made by their parents. BVSD parents have been treated to letters from the food general begging us to have our children eat breakfast and lunch at school as a means of eliminating that old stubborn achievement gap. Her last missive cheered the fact that "more kids are eating at school". Children cannot achieve if they don't eat the food Ann Cooper and Michelle Obama think they should eat which includes, strangely, more fruits and vegetables and ice cold milk. Who knew? Haven't parents been imploring their children to eat fruits and vegetables for years, decades and centuries? Not all decades of course. In the Great Depression parents did not have to beg their kids to eat cooked carrots or lima beans because those kids were hungry and there were no Fritos in the cupboard. There was no nothing in the cupboard. Families and children living in the Dust Bowl, if they didn't die from particle pneumonia, ate pickled thistle. Pickled thistle.

According to the USDA "food insecurity" affects approximately 35 million people in America. Food insecurity is defined specifically as reduction in food selection and or total calories at some point during the year typically due to financial pressures. Food insecurity is usually episodic and recurring, as opposed to chronic, and is defined in numbers of days without eating. Most of the families experiencing "food insecurity"are defined as low income and qualify for the Food Stamps program which is part of the $980 billion in food, housing and health care transferred to the poor annually by the federal government. Seventy-five percent of all people on Food Stamps are obese including the children. A typical explanation for why poor people are fat is that they "eat too much of the wrong food because it is cheaper than nutritious food". Per the USDA this is empirically not true and insulting to anyone who thinks logically. Specifically, calories per dollar are 5 times higher in soda than milk, soda being devoid of nutrition.

"Snack foods such as potato chips and donuts cost two to five times more per calorie than healthier staples such as beans, rice, and pasta. Families truly seeking to maximize calories per dollar of food expenditure would focus not on junk and snack foods but on traditional low-cost staples such as beans, rice, flour, pasta, and milk. These foods are not only less expensive but actually have below-average energy density and therefore a lower potential to promote weight gain.[16]" Barbara Rolls "The Volumetric of Weight Controls", 2000.

Obama vowed to spend $10 billion to help feed the poor and the overweight, ostensibly not because they are hungry but because their parents are incompetent at parenting. So why do the food policies for low income people include remedies that arguably make the problem worse; giving the poor more free food? Because this administration would rather micro-manage your food choices and foster dependency than allow you to improve it yourself in a bigger more real way. Michelle reaffirmed support for the Childhood Nutrition Act, i.e. spend more government money, to help with childhood obesity. This program consists of school programs run by educators to end injustice,getting kids to move ...yada yada yada; the money pours out while the kids grow fatter.

"Healthy Schools Campaign’s approach to environmental health and wellness in schools includes a special focus on the role that school environments can play in combating health disparities and promoting environmental justice." Healthy Schools Campaigns


Obamacare has provisions that will mandate BMI, body mass index, calculations on children which will certainly help kids lay off the chips. Oh, and Obama spent $400 million on the Healthy Food Financing Initiative which includes forcing grocery stores into low income neighborhoods and mandates that convenience stores have more wall space for refrigeration units so they can offer apples that the low income patrons may or may not want to buy.

The mind boggling array of dollars spent to combat what should be called malnutrition, or bad nutrition, can only be described as depressing. Bad nutrition is a cultural problem and is not purely driven by economics but socio-economics. Many kids today, including mine and poor kids who are not starving, would rather eat Oreos and Frito's which explains why some kids today are big fat fatties, to quote Glen Beck. How does one fight a culture war? Should the federal government fight a culture war? What would I do if I were Queen Michelle? I would put to rest once and for all the lie that the poor in this country are starving and that their hunger is driving the achievement gap. Many things drive the achievement gap, including but not limited to bad parents who don't care about education as well as by bad schools run by very bad and highly protected teachers. If I were Queen Michelle I would lean hard on Barry to transfer funds out of the Childhood Nutrition Act into the Race to the Top program, provided the Race to the Top guru Arne Duncan did an about face and supported school choice. Giving poor parents access to public funds and school choice via vouchers is the only long term solution out of this mad mess of throwing billions of dollars at the wrong problem. Since this will not happen with Barry at the beck and call of the National Education Association the only thing left to do is serve pickled thistle at school lunches. Pickled thistle.