By BETSY MCCAUGHEY
On February 26th, First Lady Michelle Obama walked into the produce section of a Walmart in Springfield, Missouri to announce the three year anniversary of her Healthy Food Financing Initiative, a program to bring stores selling fresh fruits and vegetables to neighborhoods deemed “food deserts.” Making it easier to buy produce will reduce obesity, Mrs. Obama claimed. Had you been there, you would have come away thinking that there was a scientific basis for this initiative and that it wasn’t costing taxpayers a dime. Walmart and other companies, said Mrs. Obama “are showing us that what is good for kids and what is good for families’ budgets can also be good for business.” Mrs. Obama repeated the message in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week.
In truth, the federal government is spending recklessly on anti-obesity programs based on sham science. Before the President whines again that shaving 2.4% off the federal budget will harm the neediest, he should cancel these programs. They fatten government and insult the public’s intelligence.
Mrs. Obama launched the Healthy Food Financing Initiative on February 19, 2010 at a supermarket in northern Philadelphia. She said the Obama administration would put $400 million into bringing grocery stores to food “deserts,” defined as neighborhoods lacking a supermarket within a mile.
Similar efforts, from Birmingham Alabama to Leeds, England, have utterly failed, according to obesity experts at RAND corporation. Living too far from a supermarket is not what makes people obese. Overeating is the problem. (Annals of Internal Medicine, July, 2011) Only 5% of Americans live in a “food desert” but 67% are overweight or obese.
In Pennsylvania, where Mrs. Obama launched her crusade, the ridiculousness should have been obvious. Between 2004 and 2010, the state of Pennsylvania and two non-profit partners had already poured $100 million into building 80 grocery stores in areas that lacked them and yet the state’s obesity rate went up.
More to the point, Melody Barnes, head of the White House domestic policy council, told reporters at the launch of the first lady’s initiative: “We believe that tens of thousands of jobs will be created,” underscoring the science of politics, not weight loss.
It’s also obvious what Walmart has to gain. Unions and community activists have opposed Walmart building stores in inner cities. Partnering with the first lady is opening doors. Springfield Missouri reversed its opposition and approved a Walmart in the city’s historic district just days before Mrs. Obama’s appearance last week. Walmart has pledged to build 275 to 300 stores in “food desert” neighborhoods.
Scientists writing in the New England Journal of Medicine (January 31, 2013) listed the myths and unproven theories about weight control. There’s a federal program erected on every one of them (except the fiction that sex burns calories.) Eating fruits and vegetables does not help weight control, unless you reduce consumption of other foods. Building parks does not reduce obesity, because the number one activity in parks is sitting.
The Obama administration didn’t invent such waste. The Bush administration’s “Healthy People 2010” initiative was based on the same bogus science. After a decade of federal intervention, the obesity rate increased from 30% to 33%.
Another myth identified in the New England Journal of Medicine is that dabs of exercise will reduce obesity. Even forty-five minute phys-ed classes don’t do it. Reducing caloric intake is the answer. Preposterously the federal government is spending $20 million on “Instant Recess.” The program will distribute DVD’s and CD’s to promote ten minute breaks during paid time at work, at church and school, so people can break out into hip hop, line dancing, African dances, and Latin Salsa.
“Instant Recess” is one of dozens of boondoggle programs funded under Section 4201 of the Obama health law, which allows the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to hand out over $100 million a year in Community Transformation Grants, supposedly to improve emotional well being, eliminate racial health disparities, and foster healthy living. Section 4201 is a license to waste money.
Betsy McCaughey is a former Lt. Governor of New York State and author of Beating Obamacare. She read the new health law so you don’t have to. www.betsymccaughey.com