Perhaps the most visible advocate for improving school food, Michelle Obama is now defending what shouldn’t be such a controversial idea: adding fruits and vegetables to public school lunches. Ask any nutrition expert what foods Americans — especially kids — need more of in their diet, and the answer would be the same: fresh produce. But some Republicans, such as Rep. Robert Aderholt of Alabama, never seem to miss an opportunity to turn a no-brainer into a political battle, particularly when it comes to school food. (Who can forget the pizza as a vegetable debacle?) And just in time to give them the necessary cover, they got a gift from an unlikely source. The School Nutrition Association (SNA) has asked Congress to approve waiver requests for schools that are struggling to comply with federal nutrition regulations aimed at improving children’s health.

Read rest at Al Jazeera America …

My new report, Whitewashed: How Industry and Government Promote Dairy Junk Foods, shines a light on the shifting patterns of consumption away from plain milk toward dairy products laden with sugar, fat, and salt. For example:

• About half of all milk is consumed either as flavored milk, with cereal, or in a drink;
• Nearly half of the milk supply goes to make about 9 billion pounds of cheese and 1.5 billion gallons of frozen desserts–two-thirds of which is ice cream;
• 11 percent of all sugar goes into the production of dairy products.

It’s bad enough for the dairy industry to promote junk food in the name of health, but making matters worse, Uncle Sam is propping up the effort. The federal government mandates the collection of industry fees for “checkoff programs” to promote milk and dairy. Far from being just a privately-funded program, U.S. Department of Agriculture employees attend checkoff meetings, monitor activities, and are responsible for evaluation of the programs. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the legality of the checkoff programs as “government speech”, finding: “the message … is controlled by the Federal Government.”

Checkoff money is also only supposed to be used for “generic” marketing activities. However, the program gives a huge boost to leading fast food chains. For example:

• McDonald’s has six dedicated dairy checkoff program employees at its corporate headquarters who work to ensure that dairy plays an important role in McDonald’s product development;
• The dairy checkoff program helped Taco Bell introduce its double steak quesadillas and cheese shreds, which resulted in a four percent increase in the chain’s dairy sales;
• The dairy checkoff program helped Pizza Hut develop a 3-Cheese Stuffed Crust Pizza and the “Summer of Cheese” ad campaign;
• Dominos benefitted from a $35 million partnership with the dairy checkoff program, resulting in the company adding more cheese, with other pizza makers following their lead;
• Domino’s “Smart Slice” program brought the pizza to more than 2,000 schools in 2011, with help from the checkoff.

Speaking of schools, the dairy industry, with a government assist, is heavily promoting chocolate and other sugar milks to schoolchildren, desperate to maintain its presence in a lucrative market with a captive audience. For example:

• USDA’s milk checkoff program promotes “Chocolate Milk Has Muscle” and “Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk” campaigns to defend chocolate milk;
• Dean Foods’ TruMoo is a popular brand sold in schools; one serving of TruMoo strawberry milk contains an incredible 21 grams of sugar;
• Milk checkoff educational materials were even used to change the mind of one school official who was planning to remove flavored milk.

Finally, many federal checkoff-funded dairy organizations make dubious health claims to market their dressed up junk foods. Would you believe that:

• “Cheese can fit into almost any eating plan”;
• “Process cheese is made from natural cheese”;
• “Cheese contributes essential nutrients for good health”;
• “Chocolate milk is the perfect balance of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates and protein—a combination that can’t be found in any other beverage”.

At a time when our nation is suffering from an epidemic of diet-related health problems, we cannot allow the decades of whitewashing by the dairy industry to continue. The assumption that eating dairy is essential to the diet has obstructed our ability to criticize federal government support for unhealthy forms of dairy.

It’s time to stop dancing around the federal checkoff programs by pretending they are privately-funded. As this report demonstrates, federal government administers, oversees, and approves almost every aspect of the dairy checkoff program. These funds are directly used to promote junk foods, which are contributing to the diseases our federal government is allegedly trying to prevent.

Andy Bellatti is a registered dietitian who contributed to the report by calling out the many misleading health claims made by the dairy industry. He says:

In our cultural glorification of dairy, we often forget that many of these products are directly contributing to our current public health epidemic. Even more troubling, due to the dairy industry’s deep pockets and political connections, federal authorities are giving these foods a stamp of approval, rather than raising a nutritional red flag.

Read the executive summary here.

Read the full report here.

With the passage of the Healthy, Hungry-Free Kids Act of 2010, in addition to improving school meals, Congress required the U.S. Department of Agriculture to update nearly non-existent nutrition standards on so-called competitive foods. These are foods sold outside the school meal program, including fast food items sold alongside the reimbursable lunches, and soft drinks and junk food sold in vending machines, school stores, fundraisers, and the like.

As I wrote about in my book, the issue of unhealthy beverages and junk food in schools has been a contentious one for years, mostly being fought at the state and local levels. While it’s commendable that the federal government is now taking up the issue, I have some serious concerns about the feasibility of an approach that essentially endorses healthier junk food while allowing corporations continued unfettered access to children in schools.

That’s why I have submitted comments on behalf of Center for Food Safety, endorsed by several other organizations and experts, to ask that USDA assist schools with eliminating fast food, vending, and other competitive foods from schools altogether. Below are a few highlights from those comments. (You can read the entire document here.)

Competitive foods financially undermine the school meal program.

Congress’ clear intent with the federally-subsidized school lunch and breakfast programs is to ensure millions of schoolchildren are well-nourished. However, the ongoing presence of competitive food in schools undermines these programs financially. Indeed the very term “competitive” underscores this problem. According to school chef Ann Cooper: “Students should be eating healthy complete meals; the opportunity to opt-out by purchasing competitive food is actually counter to the mission of the National School Lunch Program.”

Indeed, a report from the Illinois Public Health Institute found that while “strengthening nutrition standards for competitive foods are associated with increased participation in the USDA reimbursable meal program, schools that completely eliminated competitive food sales tended to see the greatest increases in school meal participation rates.”

Competitive foods at school meals creates stigma for low-income children.

The presence of so-called “a la carte” items on the school meal line sets up a demographic divide between those who can afford these items and those who cannot. Eliminating any competing school meal items would avoid this stigma, making a more positive eating environment for all schoolchildren. School food expert and sociology professor Janet Poppendieck agrees that unless competitive foods are eliminated entirely, that stigma will persist: “Unless the new rules convince schools to do away with the competitive foods altogether, however, a la carte items and other competitive foods will continue to undermine the National School Lunch Program, because a la carte service stigmatizes the federal lunch.”

Slightly healthier junk food is still unhealthy, sends the wrong message.

USDA’s narrow focus on nutrients such as grams of fat and sugar will still result in highly-processed junk food with only slightly improved nutritional profiles. For example, reduced-fat corn chips and baked potato chips are still junk foods with almost zero nutritional value. Moreover, lower calorie soft drinks such as Diet Coke also offer zero nutrition and have no place in a child’s diet. With UDSA essentially giving such highly processed foods the “government seal of approval,” future efforts to remove such products from schools will become even more challenging. The food industry will very likely point to the federal nutrition standards on competitive foods as the “new normal” in schools, potentially undermining advocates who wish to rid schools of these unhealthy processed products altogether.

Competitive food allows junk food companies to market to children.

Maintaining the presence of fast food, soft drink, and junk food companies in public schools sends all the wrong messages to children. These companies are eager to sell their products in schools because they want to get kids hooked at an early age, to ensure brand loyalty for life. A vending machine that promotes Diet Coke versus Coke exploits children all the same. More important than the nutritional content is the branding messages that these products carry. Food corporations are happy to comply with minor tweaks to their products to ensure their brands remain in schools. With these proposed nutrition guidelines, USDA is helping to secure the inappropriate, exploitative, and harmful role these companies currently have in targeting children, in and out of schools.

To both maximize the economic benefit to schools and as well as protect schoolchildren, USDA should assist and provide resources to help schools that want to eliminate competitive foods, as opposed to simply placing a healthy halo and government seal of approval upon highly-processed and nutritionally-void products from companies seeking only to target children with their brands.

In addition to the Center for Food Safety, the following organizations and individuals signed on to the full comments:

• Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood
• Corporate Accountability International
• Dietitians for Professional Integrity
• Food Democracy Now!
• Food and Water Watch
• New York Coalition for Healthy School Food
• Nutritional Therapy Association
• Organic Consumers Association
• Reese Richman, LLP

• Andy Bellatti, MS, RD, Registered Dietitian
• Ann Cooper, Founder, Food Family Farming Foundation
• Nancy Huehnergarth, Food Policy Consultant
• Frances Moore Lappé and Anna Lappé, Small Planet Institute
• Janet Poppendieck, PhD, author, Free for All: Fixing School Food in America and Professor Emerita, Hunter College

Originally posted at the Center for Food Safety.

Michelle Obama speaking to the National Restaurant Association in September 2010

As I explained yesterday, I am writing one post per day this week to being attention to the new book by food labor rights advocate Saru Jayaraman, Behind the Kitchen Door. The book brings much-needed attention to the 10 million restaurant workers who toil everyday over our meals, often for slave wages. The National Restaurant Association (the other NRA) is largely responsible for lobbying to keep the federal tipped minimum wage at a paltry $2.13 an hour. Unfortunately, the topic of worker rights never came up in the speech the first lady gave to the NRA in September of 2010.

As part of her Let’s Move campaign to end childhood obesity, Michelle Obama has urged the food industry to make voluntary improvements to their products, along with some cajoling on their incessant marketing to children. But with the restaurant industry, the first lady has focused mainly on getting companies to improve the nutritional content of their children’s meals. From her 2010 speech to the NRA:

I’m not asking any of you to make drastic changes to every single one of your recipes or to totally change the way you do business.  But what I am asking is that you consider reformulating your menu in pragmatic and incremental ways to create healthier versions of the foods that we all love.

Michelle Obama at press event for Darden restaurants in September 2011

Then in February 2011, the New York Times reported that the first lady’s team was “holding private talks over the past year” with the NRA to “get restaurants to adopt her goals of smaller portions and children’s meals.” (I wrote about the troubling aspects of Mrs. Obama’s secret meetings with Walmart that same year.) A few months later came the restaurant industry’s dream come true: a press conference with the first lady for the Darden Group, a massive corporation that owns such chains as Olive Garden and Red Lobster. The first lady was gushing, calling the occasion a “breakthrough moment in the restaurant industry.” She continued:

Darden is doing what no restaurant company has done before – they’re not just making their kids menus healthier so that parents have more choices and more control, they’re committing to make changes across the full menu at every single one of their restaurants. Darden is working to make the healthy choice the easy choice, and they’re making it the delicious and fun choice too. I’m confident that if companies like Darden continue to be creative and innovative and keep our kids’ best interests at heart then we will solve the challenge of childhood obesity and give all our kids the healthy futures they deserve.

It doesn’t get much better than that. But was all the fuss really warranted? Among the commitments: “working toward a 10 percent reduction of calories and sodium over five years and a 20 percent reduction in calories and sodium over 10 years.” Five and ten years? I thought we were at a crisis stage? Other vague promises were to be implemented by 2012, such as displaying healthier menu options more prominently “when possible” and promoting milk, with free refills. (Score one for the dairy industry.)

Author Anna Lappé was also unimpressed. In an article for Grist called Snake in the Olive Garden, she noted that given how insanely high in calories and sodium the chain’s dishes already were, these improvements were “not exactly deserving of fancy press conferences and pats on the back, especially when it comes with the publicity glow of the first lady.”

Moreover, Darden was an especially appalling restaurant group for Mrs. Obama to hitch her valuable PR wagon to, given the company’s history of labor violations. Charges of discrimination and wage theft, for example, have resulted in multiple class action lawsuits that continue today.

Which brings us back to workers. It’s great that the first lady is bringing much-needed attention to the problem of childhood obesity. And if she can convince the nation’s chain restaurants to improve its menu items to make dining out easier for parents who want to feed their kids right, more power to her. However, it’s disingenuous at best for Mrs. Obama to celebrate Darden for keeping “our kids’ best interests at heart” when this company has shown nothing but disdain for its workers. Don’t their kids count too?

Please support the workers’ Dignity at Darden campaign, organized by Restaurant Opportunities Center United, the group that author Sara Jayaraman started. You can learn more about her book, Behind the Kitchen door, here.

The purpose of the new meal regulations was to address childhood obesity and diet related diseases. As a result the meal guidelines were brought into better compliance with the US Dietary Guidelines. The maximum calories per school meal established for the new regulations was still higher than the average calories eaten per school meal in the past, so the claim that students were starving is a sham.

Yet after the YouTube video called “We are Hungry” came out, there was a media frenzy and the video went viral, as did media articles about it. The claim was that the video was created by some high school students and their teachers. That seems highly unlikely. Anyone who knows anything about video production can see that professional production and directing services were deployed.

In the very first scene (and throughout) a high school student wears an “I Love Beef” t-shirt — not too subtle. In the end, a student is taken away in an ambulance, with his body falling out of the back as it drives away from the school – a very dangerous stunt, one that I am shocked a school or an ambulance company would allow to take place. I see this as a gross abuse of the students, school resources, and the ambulance company.*

The reality is that the amount of grains has decreased slightly, and the amount of meat has remained about the same (two ounces less per week at most for high school students only; the amount allowed previously was a range). It’s well known that children will fill up on starchy carbohydrates and the protein component and leave the vegetables on their plate. But when they are hungry, they will eat more fruits and vegetables. By reducing slightly the amount of grains and meat for high school students, it’s more likely they will eat more of the nutrient-dense vegetables and fruits – if they are hungry.

The amount of fruits and vegetables has almost doubled, so there is no calorie deficit from what there was before. It may be true that students who don’t want to eat all those fruits and vegetables will have less food, but resistance is a normal reaction to change, and eventually students do, and have adjusted. Instead, we have essentially said: “OK, you don’t like healthy food, we’ll give you more unhealthy food instead since that’s what you really want.” By unhealthy food I mean meat and refined grains; this year schools only need 26% of grains to be whole – and don’t be confused by “whole grain rich” language.

Also, the easing up on maximum grain and meat is supposedly only while schools adjust. What’s next? When they go back to the original or some modified rule, the same people will complain again – and that is the work of the food industry lobby. Indeed, the same legislators who requested the relaxed rule are already asking for the changes to become permanent. More whole grains, without preservatives and other additives would not be a problem. But the research is very clear that meat is a major contributor to disease and poor health, and the whole purpose of having healthier meals is to reverse this trend.

*The “We are Hungry” video links to a Facebook page called “Nutrition Nannies” hosted by two GOP members of Congress: Rep. King of Iowa and Rep. Huelskamp of Kansas.

The United Fresh Produce Association Foundation says it’s “proud to be a Founding Partner of the Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools Initiative.” I thought the First Lady should know this trade group is responsible for killing a vital produce testing program that helps keep kids safe from infection.

Dear Mrs. Obama,

I am writing out of deep concern over Let’s Move’s partnerships with the United Fresh Produce Association and the Produce Marketing Association. These two groups have lobbied to kill a vital pathogen testing program. While the Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools program is to be applauded, its association with these trade groups is not.

You may be unaware of a small produce testing program tucked away at USDA called the Microbiological Data Program (MDP). At a cost of only $4.5 million a year, it’s one of the most efficient and successful uses of taxpayer dollars; and yet, it’s been zeroed out of the 2013 budget. Here is how Food Safety News recently described it:

This “tiny” program was launched in 2001 simply to collect data about fresh produce contamination, but it now regularly sparks produce recalls when participating state labs find pathogens. Perhaps more importantly, the labs upload any positive test results to the Centers for Disease Control’s PulseNet, which helps public health officials link foodborne illness cases to food products. MDP is also the only federal program that tests for non-O157 E. coli strains like the one that caused the deadly, high profile sprout outbreak in Germany last year.

While industry argues that the Food and Drug Administration is better suited to the task than USDA, Food Safety News found that leaving the job up to FDA will mean an 80 percent reduction in produce testing. This translates to potential lives being lost. Again, from Food Safety News:

From 2009 to 2012, MDP found Salmonella 100 times, E. coli O157:H7 twice, and Listeria monocytogenes 8 times. Over the same time period, the program sparked 23 Salmonella recalls, 2 E. coli O157:H7 recalls, and 5 Listeria recalls. Of the pathogens the program identified during that time, 39 Salmonella isolates were matched to human illnesses — as were both E. coli O157:H7 and all 8 Listeria isolates.

So why am I telling you all this? Because, as I described in February (based on an Associated Press story), the produce industry is behind the effort to kill MDP. According to the AP:

Industry leaders from United Fresh Produce Association and other major trade associations have repeatedly pushed the government in recent years to get rid of the comprehensive testing program, saying it has cost growers millions in produce recalls and unfairly targeted farmers who aren’t responsible for contaminating the food.

Yes, those pesky recalls of contaminated food that can kill and ruin lives. Mrs, Obama, the produce industry is quite simply putting profits ahead of people.

The Chicago Tribune has also reported how the produce lobby wants to kill MDP. According to United Fresh representative David Gombas, over time the testing program “got twisted and it turned into a regulatory program where they were finding contamination and turning it over to the FDA and causing recalls.”

Finding contamination. Causing recalls. This must stop?

Moreover, in this document outlining the United Fresh Produce Association’s 2012 lobbying agenda, the trade group clearly states its desire to put the final nail in the MDP coffin: “Now that Congress has zeroed out funding for the Microbiological Data Program (MDP), it will be necessary to ensure that USDA sunsets the program and that protocols shift to FDA.”

If all that isn’t enough damning evidence, this disclosure form filed by a lobbying firm (The Russell Group) for United Fresh lists MDP funding in the 2012 Agriculture Appropriations Act as one of the issues the firm lobbied upon late last year. (It wasn’t to save the program.)

While it would be nice if FDA took up the slack, all signs are that it won’t, due to inadequate funding. As the Washington Post reported this week, neither President Obama nor Congress have put the program into the budget or any agriculture spending bills.

Mrs. Obama, I hope you are aware that with their still-developing immune systems, children are especially vulnerable to inflections from foodborne illness. I am sure your desire to get children to eat more fresh produce isn’t just about good nutrition. Don’t you also care that the produce children eat is free of life-threatening bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella? Of course you do. That’s why I am pleading with you to use your connections to the leaders of the fresh produce lobby to demand an explanation for why they are killing this program, and in the process, putting our kids at risk.

Many others are also calling on the federal government to save the program. For example, The New York Times editorial board called MDP “A Tiny Food Program that Matters, ” explaining:

There is too much at stake. Last fall, for instance, an outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe killed 30 people. Raw alfalfa sprouts, spinach, lettuce, and tomatoes have sickened consumers in recent years. Keeping food safe requires consistent monitoring by the federal government. Ending this small program would harm those efforts.

Spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, sprouts, the good stuff school salad bars are made of, and all high-risk produce for potential contamination. Parents shouldn’t have to worry that the salad bars being put into their children’s schools by Let’s Move are tainted with deadly bacteria. Don’t you agree? Wouldn’t it be nice if the funders of Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools did too?

Please do whatever you can to help save this vital program. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Michele Simon

An objective approach is badly needed because Big Food’s own lame voluntary rules allow such sugar atrocities as Reese’s Puffs cereal and Kool-Aid to be marketed to kids. But this latest political delay tactic makes no sense because it’s entirely voluntary for industry to adopt any final guidelines. As Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, noted:

Doing a cost-benefit analysis makes sense for regulations that require companies to actually do something. But there is no cost associated with something that is totally voluntary.

Where then, is this idea coming from? Specifically, before its report is made final, FTC must now attempt to comply with Executive Order 13563. What’s that? Bear with me, as some history is in order.

The order derives from a nasty right-wing deregulation policy that dates back (surprise!) to the Reagan administration. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) may sound innocuous, but over the past 30 years, it has become the best tool Corporate America has to kill proposed rules it doesn’t like. It acts as a gigantic hoop an agency must jump through to prove societal benefits outweigh economic costs, tacked on to an already stringent regulatory rule-making process. Here’s how Huffington Post Washington correspondent Dan Froomkin explains it:

OIRA analysts are supposed to rigorously examine proposed regulations and reject or revise them as necessary, based on interagency concerns and whether the costs of policy proposals outweigh their benefits.

This “regulatory bottleneck by design” has been a huge success for business interests over the years:

Since Ronald Reagan opened the OIRA office in 1981, Republicans have used it to particular advantage to pursue an anti-regulatory agenda, defanging environmental rules on things like water runoff and climate change — even blocking attempts to collect information that might lead to regulations.

Despite promises by President Obama to develop a new approach and some positive efforts early on to reverse Bush-era oppressive policies, this past January the White House, as Froomkin explains: “finally issued a limp executive order that basically reaffirmed the principles that had been guiding the office for years.” So much for change. The effect has been that all “significant executive-branch regulations” must get approval from OIRA before being proposed or finalized. That’s some bottleneck. (For more on deregulation and its impacts on health and safety under the Obama administration see OMB Watch.)

Which brings us back to junk food marketing to children. Remember, any final federal recommendations on nutrition guidelines would be voluntary. The entire process was never to result in regulations. This summer, FTC’s David Vladeck, director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, wrote a frankly worded and humorous blog post in response to a massive industry freak-out led by the advertising lobby warning of “suppression of unprecedented amounts of advertising” to children. (Wasn’t that the idea?)

Vladeck tried to calm industry fears by explaining the FTC is just reporting to Congress, which “provides no basis for law enforcement action.” He repeated: “This is a report to Congress, not a rulemaking proceeding, so there’s no proposed government regulation.” And he added, just in case industry still didn’t get it: “A report is not a law, a regulation, or an order, and it can’t be enforced.” (my emphasis)

If you’re still with me, even if you didn’t attend law school, you may be wondering by now, how could Congress require that an executive order intended for proposed agency regulations apply to a report that “provides no basis for law enforcement action?”

Good question. I’ve been asking a few of my lawyer colleagues the same thing and they agree it makes no legal sense. Public health attorney Mark Gottlieb, executive director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute, which also fights the tobacco industry, told me he thinks the executive order only applies to formal rule-making and “does not seem to apply to promulgation of voluntary guidelines that go to great pains to avoid regulating industry.”

In other words, FTC is likely on solid legal ground to go ahead and release its final report to Congress without conducting any cost/benefit analysis. But I doubt we will ever see the final report. (We do have the proposed version, which can still be used to stick it to industry, as the Environmental Working Group recently did in its damning report on sugary cereals.)

This wouldn’t be the first time Congress overstepped its legal boundaries. As I argued with the pizza-as-vegetable debacle, Congress hijacked the USDA regulatory process to do the food industry’s bidding. Here, it’s not exactly the regulatory process that’s been superseded, because the report FTC is trying to release is voluntary, but Congress is just as wrong.

Apparently, it wasn’t enough for the food, advertising, and media industries to spend $37 million lobbying this year to get its way. Nor has the multi-year delay of this entire process thanks to ongoing corporate bullying sufficed. How about making bogus “job loss” claims or (for the top Chutzpah Award) warning that we’d have to import more produce if kids actually ate their fruits and vegetables? Still not enough.

Industry keeps right on lobbying, it’s what they do best. And for Congress, it’s just business as usual. But the very real consequence of maintaining the status quo is that children will continue to be exploited for their emotional vulnerability, while getting lured into bad eating habits that can last a lifetime.

Cost/benefit analysis? Industry benefits, while children pay the cost.

Postscript: Thanks to CSPI’s Margo Wootan for sharing this take action link – tell the Obama administration, don’t let Congress and the food industry win this fight.

So what’s all the fuss over Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign to end childhood obesity, and will it make a difference? Of course, it’s too soon to know for sure (it just launched last month), but early signs indicate more talk than action and deafening silence on corporate marketing practices.

The most obvious problem is framing the issue around obesity, which implies a couple of troubling assumptions. One, that skinny kids are just fine, no matter what garbage they are being fed, and two, that exercise, which has long been a convenient distraction, will continue to be so.

What is Let’s Move?

I highly recommend spending a few minutes perusing the Let’s Move website, which is simple, but informative in describing the campaign. (For a more detailed description, read the press release.) While the name Let’s Move implies a program all about exercise, in fact 3 of the 4 components have to do with food, which leads me to wonder why the White House wanted that to be less obvious. According to the home page:

Let’s Move will give parents the support they need, provide healthier food in schools, help our kids to be more physically active, and make healthy, affordable food available in every part of our country.

All laudable goals indeed, but notably absent is any criticism of the billions of dollars a year Big Food spends successfully convincing both parents and children to eat highly processed junk food and sugary beverages. Michelle Obama may be able to withstand the call of the Happy Meal, but most parents aren’t so lucky to have a White House chef at their disposal.

To her credit, the First Lady is saying many good things about parents needing more support. Also, for the first time I heard the phrase “food desert” uttered on national TV. So she really does seem to understand that it’s not all about education or personal responsibility.

But how exactly will Mrs. Obama and her husband attempt to end childhood obesity “within a generation.” First is the formation of yet another task force. As the President’s memo explains, members of the Task Force on Childhood Obesity are to include the Secretaries of the Interior, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Education, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the First Lady. Heavy hitters yes, but might they have just a few other items already on their to-do list?

Also, in key language, the memo explains that “the functions of the Task Force are advisory only,” meaning that this body, at the end of the day (or many months), will only make recommendations for another body (Congress?) to then maybe, someday, consider.

Do We Really Need Another Task Force?

The Obama Administration may be surprised (since they are calling it the “first ever”) to learn that theirs is not the first federal task force on this issue. The previous administration had a few failed attempts. We already tried the Task Force on Media and Childhood Obesity, which the Federal Communications Commission spearheaded. Perhaps it never really went anywhere thanks to its members, who included the likes of Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Disney.

Then there was the Food and Drug Administration’s Obesity Working Group, which was broader than just childhood obesity, and whose pathetic achievement was the startling discovery (and accompanying silly web-based tool) that “calories count.”

But given that we really can’t count anything tried under the previous administration, I am willing to wait and see if this task force can come up with something better. It certainly can’t be any worse than the lame “Small Steps” program (still online).

And let’s not forget the still active Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children, which is comprised of officials from four agencies: the Federal Trade Commission, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In December of last year, this body released “tentative proposed nutrition standards” (for food products the government says are A-OK to market to kids) and is planning a final report with recommendations (for voluntary standards) to Congress this July. (Read author and fellow blogger Jill Richardson’s excellent description of its public panel and proposed standards)

This is the historical backdrop into which Michelle Obama now brings us Let’s Move. It’s not as if we haven’t been here before; she’s building on many failed attempts. But let’s take a closer look at one of the four Let’s Move components – school food.

How to Improve School Nutrition?

Under the “Healthier Schools” tab of the campaign’s website, I recognize a few programs that have been out there for some time. For example, the underfunded Healthier US School Challenge and the ineffective Team Nutrition program, both under the U.S. Department of Agriculture, that agency whose number one mission is to prop up Big Agriculture. (The USDA also happens to be in charge of school nutrition and other food assistance programs, which has never proven to be a good combination.)

A few things are new under Let’s Move, including doubling the number of schools that meet the Healthier US Schools Challenge and adding 1,000 schools per year for two years after that. And the President proposes to increase the federal budget by $1 billion annually to improve the quality of school meals. This sounds impressive, but as school lunch expert and Chef Ann Cooper pointed out in a recent Washington Post article, a mere 10 percent increase is a drop in the bucket. Currently, we feed 31 million students a day on $9.3 billion, which amounts to only $2.68 per meal. When was the last time you ate a decent lunch less than 3 bucks? (No, the dollar menu meal doesn’t count.)

And nowhere is any mention of the ongoing problem of competitive foods, which is government doublespeak for Coke and Pepsi vending machines in every school hallway, Doritos, Milky Way, and Good Humor sold in school stores, not to mention fast food like Pizza Hut that has taken over many school lunchrooms. Maybe that’s because the Obama Administration has decided that the success of Let’s Move depends in part on “the creation of public private partnerships.” That sounds familiar.

Working With Industry?

Since signing up for the Let’s Move email updates, I haven’t been too impressed. Here are two topics that landed in my in-box last week: Attention Techies! Apps for Healthy Kids Launched Yesterday and Paralympic Games Show All Athletes Can Be Champions. Now please don’t send hate mail; I have nothing against apps or the Paralympics, I just don’t understand how these concepts will solve childhood obesity “within a generation.”

In an especially bad sign, Michelle Obama is speaking at a gathering of the Grocery Manufacturers Association this Tuesday. As I chronicled in Appetite for Profit, GMA, the lobbying arm of packaged foods conglomerates such as Kraft and PepsiCo has a long history of undermining school nutrition standards, among other positive policies.

As another blogger suggests, Mrs. Obama’s own ties to Big Food may explain her deferential treatment of industry. She served on the board of directors of TreeHouse Foods (a spinoff of conglomerate Dean Foods) for two years until 2007, when her husband’s presidential campaign became all consuming. This same blogger predicts that at the GMA meeting:

Mrs. Obama will focus on “the pressing need to pursue comprehensive solutions to combat childhood obesity” and call upon food manufacturers to join these efforts by “providing healthier food options and better information about healthy food choices.”

But Kraft, PepsiCo, Kellogg’s and others have been all over that idea for several years now with their “smart choices” foods and claims of responsible marketing to children through its bogus Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative.

We won’t hear any scolding or warning aimed at industry. Instead, the First Lady will simply ask the major food corporations to jump on the Let’s Move bandwagon. And they will do so gladly. With no threats looming (for example, that Congress might pass legislation to restrict marketing to kids) Big Food has nothing to fear; quite the contrary, industry gains positive PR in the process. Indeed, not missing a beat, GMA sent the White House a letter of support for the campaign on the same day that Let’s Move launched.

Let’s Move the Corporations Out of Washington

The bottom line for me is that while there are many things to like about Let’s Move and it’s certainly encouraging for a First Lady to talk about access to fresh, healthy food as a national priority, much of it is still rhetoric we’ve heard before.

To turn the talk into real action will take a ton of leadership from President Obama and even more political will from Congress. Most importantly, unless and until the ubiquitous junk food marketing stops, both in schools and out, very little of substance will change and we will be back here once again with the next administration’s childhood obesity task force.

Let me know what you think.

Postscript (3/17): Michelle Obama tells GMA curb junk food marketing to kids, wants more “healthy food” marketing instead. Read about her talk on Marion Nestle’s blog and see the transcript.

And the timing of the ad campaign seems awfully suspicious, as Ad Age notes:

While the school initiative was in place well before the industry was put on the defensive against the proposed taxes, the promotion of the program is certainly well-timed. New York Gov. David Paterson has called for a one-cent-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, while Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter last week proposed a two-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary beverages.

The soft drink industry certainly knows how to deflect attention and confuse the issues. Calling their latest “initiative” (is anyone else sick and tired of hearing that word?), “Clear on Calories,” Big Soda seems to think that placing calorie numbers on the front of beverage containers and vending machines equals good nutrition and “has painted the voluntary commitment as an answer to First Lady Michelle Obama’s call to eradicate childhood obesity.” Funny, I don’t remember seeing anything about soda calorie labels in the First Lady’s program.

The ever-ready with a quote PR guy Kevin Keane, of the American Beverage Association (i.e., lobbying trade group) explains: “These are the fiercest rivals you’re going to get. But our companies felt [the campaign] was the strongest way to convey what they’d done and that they’d done it together.” How warm and fuzzy. Of course, these same companies have been lobbying together for years to undermine school nutrition policy, so this teamwork is really nothing new.