Michelle Obama: I Couldn't Feed My Kids Right–Even with a Harvard Degree
In an interview with MSN.com, First Lady Michelle Obama explained she used to struggle to feed her kids right—even though she received an education from Harvard and Princeton.
“Before coming to the White House, I struggled, as a working parent with a traveling, busy husband, to figure out how to feed my kids healthy, and I didn’t get it right,” she explained, sharing a story about her children’s doctor who pulled her aside to talk about her family diet.
“I thought to myself, if a Princeton and Harvard-educated professional woman doesn’t know how to adequately feed her kids, then what are other parents going through who don’t have access to the information I have?” she recalled.
Her personal struggle helped her launch her mission to address childhood obesity, she explains, especially passing a law requiring schools to provide healthier meals for kids.
The First Lady recommended that schools make decisions for children because their parents struggle to feed their children well.
“It’s so important for our schools to make the hard calls for our kids, because parents are struggling enough at home,” she said, pointing out that schools would simply feed children sweet cereal, chocolate milk, donuts, burgers, and fries.
Obama added that parents and school administrators needed to stop worrying about what their kids want to eat and encourage them to act like adults.
“It is our job as adults to make sure that our kids eat what they need, not what they want,” she said. “I struggle with that in my own life, and I tell you, if I let my kids dictate what we have for dinner every day, it would be French fries, chips, and candy, but we don’t run our households like that, and we can’t run our schools like that.”
Instead of rolling back the national school mandates, the First Lady explained that schools just needed more help making healthy food taste better.
“What we need to do is lend a hand to the schools that are struggling, not roll back the standards and say, 'Oh, well. The kids don’t like it so let them eat cake,'” she insisted. “We can’t afford to do that."
“I thought to myself, if a Princeton and Harvard-educated professional woman doesn’t know how to adequately feed her kids, then what are other parents going through who don’t have access to the information I have?” she recalled.
I can get behind what she's doing for better eating for kids, but that to me sounds as though this smug wookie's saying that parents who don't have dual ivy league college degrees have no clue how to feed their kids, which is complete bullshit.
Not sure what the school she went to has to do with with understanding nutrition and biology/physiology
I believe her intent was to promote her educational background, even though it has little to do with the subject matter. Unless she graduated with a degree in nutrition, I don't think she's in any position to say what does and doesn't work for the average American household.
“I thought to myself, if a Princeton and Harvard-educated professional woman doesn’t know how to adequately feed her kids, then what are other parents going through who don’t have access to the information I have?”
It's called the internet, we all have the same info. She really should just stop talking. Every time she talks, she shows the world just how ignorant and incompetent she really is.
move along folks, nothing to see here. If this little snippet of an interview is something you consider worth getting outraged about you clearly have too much time on your hands.
All she's saying here is that providing balanced diet for children is clearly some sort of rocket science. Even with her infinite wisdom she couldn't figure it out, so let's just go back to Happy meals.
I could see having some healthy food guidelines for school lunches in elementary school, but by high school kids should know enough about what is healthy and what is not. If an 18 year old is old enough to go fight in a war, he's old enough to choose if he wants to eat healthy food or fattening food from the cafeteria.
Also is chocolate milk really that unhealthy? Isn't it better that kids have chocolate milk than no milk at all? I say this because Michelle specifically mentioned chocolate milk and last week Governor Malloy vetoed a bill that would've banned in public school cafeterias (part of his reason for doing so is because he felt it would lead to less kids drinking milk).
Just watched a recent video on cracked on how increasingly difficult it is to eat healthy considering the practices of the food industry in this day and age. I doubt that Mrs. Obama is doing or will ever do much to change the underlying foundations of why it has become so hard to stay healthy in this country. Not that this is necessarily something that is entirely possible tbh, it's probably more effective to work with a terrible system rather than change it on a fundamental level.
On a side note, given Mrs. Obama's main initiative, I highly doubt anyone needs to worry about her ever running for office one day. She's in a position where she has the access to make all sorts of friends to really change the world, and she focuses on getting kids to eat right. It might be secretly genius to stick to an apolitical issue, and I'm just too inexperienced in the ways of politics to see it, but I sort of doubt it's a way to ever become a political force to be reckoned with.
I could see having some healthy food guidelines for school lunches in elementary school, but by high school kids should know enough about what is healthy and what is not. If an 18 year old is old enough to go fight in a war, he's old enough to choose if he wants to eat healthy food or fattening food from the cafeteria.
Also is chocolate milk really that unhealthy? Isn't it better that kids have chocolate milk than no milk at all? I say this because Michelle specifically mentioned chocolate milk and last week Governor Malloy vetoed a bill that would've banned in public school cafeterias (part of his reason for doing so is because he felt it would lead to less kids drinking milk).
Chocolate milk is much healthier than a soda. As long as you stick with a 1% milk. It's the whole milk that's a killer.
I can get behind what she's doing for better eating for kids, but that to me sounds as though this smug wookie's saying that parents who don't have dual ivy league college degrees have no clue how to feed their kids, which is complete bullshit.
You believing the First Lady is that tactless is hard to accept.
She was saying it is unreasonably difficult for people to support their families in a first world country.
Cost was not the only factor she cited. Time was another which I consider to be more important.
Just watched a recent video on cracked on how increasingly difficult it is to eat healthy considering the practices of the food industry in this day and age. I doubt that Mrs. Obama is doing or will ever do much to change the underlying foundations of why it has become so hard to stay healthy in this country. Not that this is necessarily something that is entirely possible tbh, it's probably more effective to work with a terrible system rather than change it on a fundamental level.
On a side note, given Mrs. Obama's main initiative, I highly doubt anyone needs to worry about her ever running for office one day. She's in a position where she has the access to make all sorts of friends to really change the world, and she focuses on getting kids to eat right. It might be secretly genius to stick to an apolitical issue, and I'm just too inexperienced in the ways of politics to see it, but I sort of doubt it's a way to ever become a political force to be reckoned with.
"House Republicans have inserted language in a new spending bill that allows schools to opt out of tougher nutrition standards for lunch and breakfast programs if they can show the programs lose money."
As for her running? She has the national name recognition, would have the ability to raise enormous amounts of money and would have plenty of minions to write her a comprehensive platform. What isn't there to like? There has already been speculation about her running for a Senate seat in the state of Illinois. She may have powerful friends but the way liberals look at things, the federal government seems like the biggest tool to really bring "change".
It's amazing how these people have the nerve to say things like this. They are so out of touch with the working class that they do not represent the average person on the street.
Politicians should be "normal" people who have normal life experience.
@Master_Live: If republicans are trying to make school lunch programs political, something that doesn't cost a whole lot currently (and likely won't in the future) that's their own craziness at work. I can't imagine the poor PR foresight in trying to tell parents that the cost of their kids getting to eat healthy/healthier is just too great to afford when they know that voters get told hundreds of times a year all the other stuff that gets spent on in which they consider useless.
In terms of running compare her single issue to the things Hillary's initiatives in office. She waded into Healthcare, violence against women, and even some role in US diplomacy among other things. It bothers me, but the only other things you can really say about Michelle is her "Let's Move" initiative, and well.......fashion. She does fashion.
It's true they have spoke of her running, but realistically I don't see it happening.
Valid points on childhood obesity and irresponsible parenting completely misdirected and ignored because its way more fun to spout vitriol regarding her education and her politics.
Valid points on childhood obesity and irresponsible parenting completely misdirected and ignored because its way more fun to spout vitriol regarding her education and her politics.
Well done, everybody.
I'm not exactly sure what you want here, it's kinda hard to argue against an attempt to get kids to eat healthy food. We might as well discuss other aspects of Michelle Obama's life that gets talked about a lot.
eating healthy is hard for busy people, the less healthy stuff is usually the more convenient and sometimes more satisfying thing to eat, and sometimes healthy meals take planning
people heavily into nutrition and healthy eating though are very conscious about everything they put into their mouth, more and more they seem more inclined to find reasons not to eat something than a reason to eat something else instead, I imagine that kind of behavior over time makes it harder to plan meals
@Serraph105: there has been lots of anti health-initiative stuff because of the freedom brigade saying the gov shouldn't try to make efforts to address issues with unhealthy habits because of claims of creating a nanny state.
For example the attacks on her comments are an example of trying to discredit her and her thus discredit her goals
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