ObamaFood: Fattening Government to Fight Obesity
The child nutrition bill signed into law by President Obama on Dec. 13 has been touted as essential to combating the “epidemic” of childhood obesity.
It is also a welfare expansion, adding $4.5 billion to the cost of school lunches.
Despite the additional six cents per meal which will be paid to the schools, critics say it amounts to an unfunded mandate which could bankrupt schools.
Speaking to PJ Media on condition of anonymity, one head of food service for a Kansas school district said the law’s reimbursement already falls short of the actual cost of putting food on the table — forcing food service to draw annually from the district general fund at a time when most districts in Kansas have taken budget cuts of 10 percent or more. Just over the past year and a half, Kansas districts have lost a grand total of $303 million. Plus, federal law prohibits food service programs from going into the red, so school districts have no choice but to pay. And food and energy costs are rising.
“It’s the government starting to micromanage,” said the food service head. “It’s going to cost more money and take more staff, and districts don’t get enough as it is.”
According to a Dec. 15 piece by Julie Gunlock at National Review, the 200-page bill is full of typical goverment expansion:
The 200-plus page bill is standard Washington meddling with that familiar feel of government overreach. It’s full of new regulations and nutrition standards, expands USDA authority over local school districts, levies fines for noncompliance, and funds training, technical support, and a “food service management institute.” It also requires a slew of sure-to-be-ignored reports, studies, and research. The bill also expands participation in these programs by automatically enrolling children using state Medicaid records and federal census data.
While schools are reflexively blamed for childhood obesity, in Kansas, to take one example, students are already fed healthy meals.
“We don’t fry anything,” the source said. “We already use fresh fruits and whole grains. It’s not going to solve the problem.”
The source noted that a more rational approach would be to insist on more hours of physical activity once children are out of grade school. (In most districts in Kansas, for instance, only two semesters of physical education are required once a student is in high school. Most take care of that requirement in their freshman or sophomore year.)
Additionally, said the source, school food service can do nothing about what students eat when they are not at school — with parents often purchasing fast food because it can end up being cheaper to eat at McDonald’s than to buy fresh food.
Granting that childhood obesity is a problem, the ins and outs are beside the point: what America confronts is a parental problem, not a school problem.
Mixed messages from the law’s star supporters add to the trouble. One of the stated justifications for the bill is that hunger is a problem in the United States. First Lady Michelle Obama said this bill would “save lives.”
I’m going to go outside right now and put two hot dogs on the grill. I’m also going to grill some onions and toast the buns. I will eat this while I still have the chance to eat these foods. I wonder if hot dogs will be illegal one day?
Funny how you hear Michelle Obama yammering on all day long about food in schools, but you don’t hear her say anything about hard drugs or alcohol in schools. I guess a hot dog is a bigger threat to society than hard drugs or alcohol. These liberals really are insane.
School lunch is but one meal a day. It neither causes nor alleviates childhood obesity. Sitting in front of the tv playing video games and eating potato chips directly causes obesity. And who is Michelle to be giving nutrition/obesity advice? Seems to me her own heinie could use a little reduction.
This is but one more barrier between a parent and his or her own child. The school has been usurping parental authority (passing out condoms, etc.) for years. Now Michelle says “We can’t leave nutrition up to the parents,” and Obama mandates it and creates a whole nother department without our Representatives or us having any say about it. No matter what it takes, we have got to get control of our government soon….or we have become “subjects” instead of “We, the people.”
Leaked e-mail from Michelle Obama to Arne Duncan links obesity and public school sex-ed programs (it’s gross!), read it here…. http://beautifulletters-bls.blogspot.com/2010/12/no-cupcakes-for-you.html
The hypocrisy of this administration knows no bounds.
The horror and utter destruction of health by S510. Every human being should have the basic human right to healthy, nutritious food.
The government is rabidly opposed to strong, healthy Americans. The government has been making raids on small organic farms and farms that produce wonderful organic, raw, health-giving dairy foods.
http://www.naturalnews.com
Food safety bill invokes Codex harmonization and grants FDA authority to police food safety of foreign nations
Under full Codex “harmonization,” America will be left with a dead food supply and the health food stores will be virtually stripped bare of dietary supplements. Selling vitamin D at a reasonable dose such as 4,000 IU per capsule will be criminalized and products will be seized and destroyed by FDA agents who recruit local law enforcement to bring in the firepower.
All this will ensure a diseased, nutritionally-deficient U.S. population. This actually seems to be the goal the FDA has been trying to achieve all along because the more diseased the population, the more money gets collected by Big Pharma for “treating” sick people with medication and chemotherapy.
The bill does absolutely nothing to limit the use of chemical pesticides on imported food According to the FDA’s stance on all this, foods laced with DDT and other pesticides are perfectly “safe” for human consumption, but foods teeming with probiotics — such as raw milk — are deadly and dangerous!
The Food Safety Modernization Act is the destroyer of local organic farming. It will gut small farms and local farms, greatly increasing the price of local organic food while decreasing America’s food security. Farmers’ Markets will be targeted by FDA agents who raid the operations of local farmers and imprison them for not having the right paperwork. Families will be destroyed.
http://www.naturalnews.com/030863_food_safety_bill_Codex_Alimentarius.html
US leaders seek to destroy not only the health of Americans, but they seek to also destroy the health of other nations’ peoples.
http://www.naturalnews.com
Wikileaks cable reveals U.S. conspired to retaliate against European nations if they resisted GMOs
Stapleton: “Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits.” These are the words of the U.S. ambassador to France.
http://www.naturalnews.com/030828_GMOs_Wikileaks.html
Land of the Free and Home of the Brave? US leaders don’t believe in freedom; especially when it comes to healthy, nutritious food. A mom and her frightened young children were held for several hours at GUNPOINT.
http://www.mercola.com
Farmers and Private Food Coops Persecuted
Dr. Mercola | August 05 2010
The idea of armed federal agents storming through small farms and barns, making off with milk cartons and computers, would be quite laughable — if it weren’t a reality. Victims of recent government raids, as Grist reported, include:
* Rawesome Foods: A private food club run by raw-food advocate Aajonus Vonderplanitz in California. Agents took thousands of dollars worth of raw honey and raw dairy products, and shut the group down for not having a public health permit (even though they’re a private food club). The FBI and FDA were also on the scene.
* Traditional Foods Warehouse: A food club in Minnesota that offers locally produced foods. Agents raided the club and shut it down.
* A private residence: Agents searched a home and took computers because a family allowed a raw dairy farmer to park in their driveway while distributing raw milk to residents who had ordered it.
* The dairy farm and farm store of Vernon Hershberger: Three raids in a three-month period!
* The farm of Sharon Palmer: Agents raided her farm three times in 18 months over issues with her labeling of goat cheese. A computer and milk used to feed chickens and pigs were confiscated.
* Manna Storehouse: An Ohio food club that has been raided over licensing issues. According to Grist, “Armed law enforcement officers actually held a mother and eight young children being home-schooled at gunpoint for several hours while they searched the home and food storage areas.”
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/08/05/raids-are-increasing-on-farms-and-private-foodsupply-clubs.aspx
Not only are genetically modified foods dangerous and damage health, gm crops have been the tragic cause of thousands of suicides. Monsanto have blood on their hands:
http://www.mercola.com
Monsanto has been ruthless in their drive to use India as a testing ground for GM crops, and it gives us a very clear picture of what could be in store for the rest of the world’s small farmers if they’re allowed to continue.
Over the past decade, millions of Indian farmers have been promised radically increased harvests and income if they switch from their traditional farming methods to genetically modified Bt cotton seeds.
To do so, the farmers often borrow money to buy the GM seeds, which then require the use of certain pesticides, which requires even more money.
That’s when Monsanto’s promises begin to fall apart, as when rainfall is sparse, the GM crops fare far worse than traditional crops — a fact that these farmers oftentimes don’t learn until it’s too late and they’re faced with failed crops, spiraling debts, and no income.
This is driving Indian farmers to take desperate actions. According to the National Crime Records Bureau of India, more than 182,900 Indian farmers took their own lives between 1997 and 2007. It estimates 46 Indian farmers commit suicide every day, which equates to roughly one suicide every 30 minutes!
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/06/03/another-despicable-monsanto-move-seeks-to-devastate-haiti-further.aspx
Gay people claim that they were born that way and can’t help themselves. Obese people can make the same claim, so if the Government can fix obesity they should also start fixing the helpless gay people.
Actually we should change the rules for military enlistment so that obese people can serve, to fill the slots left when normal people start leaving the service.
It doesn’t take a village I don’t care what Hillary or Shelly think or say. My kids followed my example and together we played, exercised and ate right. From the very earliest I was taking my boys to the YMCA pool where we swam laps. We also rode our bicycles and set up a little work out area in the back yard. Sure the boys spent some time playing computer or video games but it was my responsibility as a parent to make sure not too much time and to give them the opportunity to get some exercise. And what better way then with their dad? My wife was a stay at home mom and always had a good and low fat meal for all of us to share together. And since she is Korean we ate a largely Korean style diet, rice, veggies, fish, chicken, etc. I wouldn’t take advice from Shelly if you paid me. And by the way she should take a look at her hindquarters in the mirror. She might want to do something about her “high priced spread”.
When i was a kid I ate oatmeal and juice for breakfast. Lunch was served in school and consisted of soup,sandwich,fruit and milk. We were allowed to buy a cookie for snack. After school we went out and ran around until it got dark.When it was hot out we went out again and played. I had meat,potatoes and vegetables and milk for dinner.I only knew one or two fat kids (I had 40 on my block alone) I now teach in a federally funded preschool. The kids have oatmeal ( or waffles or pancakes or cereal)and fruit and milk for breakfast. Lunch is more like the dinners I ate. THey get fruit with it. Some kids never eat the vegetables but because they serve themselves they may have two or three helpings of pasta or rice and never touch the fruit or veggies. They have chips and salsa or yogurt or fruit for snack. They get 45 minutes of gym but some never move during that time. They just walk or hold on to a ball.They go home and sit in front of a tv or video game and eat another dinner.Their dinners are full of starch. Every year I have a few fat kids. The problem is most of these kids are overfed and under exercised. BOth the school ( which pushes food because it’s a poverty program) and their families are to blame. The kids that go to the park on the weekends are usually thinner than the kids that never go. Many are lazy and their parents are lazy because they allow these kids to sit around all day after school .A lot have health conditions such as asthema. I didn’t know anyone with asthema and I lived one block from a major highway. Their meals should be scaled back and they should get more gym instead of feeding time.Michelle Obama should be pushing more parential responsiblity to exercise these kids, not pushing food.
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