Don’t blame First Nanny.

Michelle Obama is getting a lot of blame for the unpopular features in some school lunch programs, First Nanny, etc. and maybe that's a popular political stance for the anti-Obama crowd, but this type of government manipulation of food and nutrition goes waaaay back, first for farmers to pay for over production after WWII, then the low-come and poor, and the last two decades for the middle class purchasing processed and food-away-from home. Here's testimony from early in the GW Bush administration (2003). At that time it was thought "educating" people through labeling, media campaigns, health literacy and promotion would reduce obesity. And perhaps it did, because obesity in children slowed down about 10 years ago.

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/news/testimony/obesity07162003.html

Looking back 40 years to the 1960s, when many of us in this room were children, just over four percent of 6- to 17-year-olds were overweight. Since then, that rate has more than tripled, to over 15 percent. And the problem doesn’t go away when children grow up. Nearly three out of every four overweight teenagers may become overweight adults.

I’m not willing to stand by and let that happen. American children deserve much better than being condemned to a lifetime of serious, costly, and potentially fatal medical complications associated with excess weight.

Richard H. Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.S.
Surgeon General
U.S. Public Health Service
Acting Assistant Secretary for Health
Department of Health and Human Services

July 16, 2003