Michelle Obama says ‘Let’s Move!’ Sonny Perdue says ‘let’s stop’

This month it was reported that the prevalence of obesity in the United States reached a new all-time high at almost 40 percent of adults and almost 20 percent of children. The risk of an obese child becoming an obese adult increases with age and early interventions in children are more effective than non-surgical treatment of adults.

So early prevention and treatment of obesity in childhood with the goal of preventing obesity and its multiple medical (diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers and others) and financial (over 200 billion dollars per year in direct health care costs) complications in adulthood clearly makes sense.

{mosads}Michelle Obama recognized this in the Let’s Move! program and the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act which focus on preventing disease and raising a healthier generation of children. These programs are based on good science and are cost-effective. So why are Secretary of Agriculture Dr. Sonny Perdue (he’s a veterinarian) and the Trump administration saying, “let’s stop.”

Secretary Perdue, believes that if school meals don’t have to provide food calorie labels, reduce salt, use fat-free milk, and contain more whole grains that this will somehow make “school meals great again.” Based largely on his fond school lunchroom memories of cinnamon rolls and his culinary expertise regarding grits, Perdue claims that these lunch initiatives are not good for kids because they won’t eat them, that healthier meals aren’t cost-effective, and that requiring that children know what they’re eating is too much government.

This “less is more” approach really demotes the lunchroom from a classroom to a “pleasure island:” of bad nutrition. In fact, school meals have improved across the country have improved since the start of Let’s Move! Vegetables have moved from an extracurricular salad bar to part of the hot lunch which now also often includes vegetarian meals every day. Cheese-laden pasta and breaded or deep-fried foods make rarer appearances.

Perdue said, “the kids won’t eat it” and that proceeding with this plan will cause more fruit and vegetable waste. He is, of course, correct that the composition of leftovers is affected by what is served in the first place. He is wrong that most kids won’t eat a healthier lunch. Studies in both red and blue states across the nation, found that school children actually eat more of the healthier entrée, including fruits and vegetables.

What about cost? Last month the American Academy of Pediatrics reported that making only nutritional foods available in schools would prevent 345,000 cases of childhood obesity by 2025 with a 5:1 return in reduced health care costs on every dollar invested. So Purdue’s cutting school meal spending by 1.22 billion dollars annually will end up increasing our yearly health care expenses by over 6 billion dollars.

Medically, decreased vegetable consumption, i.e., not following the Health, Hunger-Free Kids Act, is associated with substantially increased risks of adult cardiovascular disease. Academically, multiple reports in top scientific journals clearly show that better nutrition leads to better school performance. Your child’s health, diet, school attendance, and standardized test scores are all likely to improve as the nutritional quality of school lunches goes up!

The Trump administration seems to have no problem indicating its displeasure at how we express ourselves in the press and elsewhere. Is it really overly intrusive for our children to be guaranteed an opportunity to learn something about healthy nutrition as opposed to giving these programs the dump? Do we really want our children to think that macaroni and cheese almost every day must good for them because that is what they get in school?

To be sure, utilization of school lunchrooms as nutrition classrooms, promoting better school performance, and saving billions of dollars in health care costs will not “cure” the U.S. obesity epidemic. It will make a dent for the next generation. Purdue is right. School meals could be better. But they won’t be improved by reducing school nutrition support by 1.22 billion dollars.

In 2014 Obama said, “Parents have a right to expect that during the school day, their kids will have food that meets basic nutrition standards”. She was correct. Of course, she is no more a nutritionist than Purdue but the world’s obesity experts agree with her. Continuing a month of major nutritional events, Obesity Week, the premiere conference on all aspects of obesity, starts Oct. 29 in Washington, D.C. It is attended by thousands of the world’s leading obesity researchers, policymakers and healthcare professionals.

Obama and Let’s Move! will receive this group’s most prestigious award for public service which is given to someone “whose work has significantly improved the lives of those affected by obesity.” It’s time to keep on moving and say “let’s stop Sonny” from undermining our children’s health.

Dr. Michael Rosenbaum is a professor of pediatrics and medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York City and a practicing pediatrician. He directs the FIT Program at Columbia for children with obesity. He is also a member of The Obesity Society which curates Obesity Week along with the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.