Michelle Obama is trying very hard to help Americans slim down so they can stop buying clothes with sizes in the triple digits. She is probably so frustrated right now, because she has tried so many things. She has tried to get kids to exercise by teaching them hot dance moves. She has infiltrated day cares with her anti-obesity propaganda. She even tossed the old “food pyramid” in the garbage. Unfortunately, Americans are so accustomed to killing themselves with food that even those wishing to follow our FLOTUS’ lead have no idea how to do so.
A few weeks ago, our FLOTUS decided that a food-shaped pyramid was one of the reasons why people in this country are unbelievably fat. So now, we have “MyPlate.”
While it’s easy to see why the USDA and the first lady wanted to streamline the process of choosing your food as much as possible for Americans with busy lives, MyPlate may be too simplified. Based purely on the visual of the plate, it would seem that, as long as you fulfill the proper portions requirement, anything you choose is fair game: there’s no differentiation as to what’s best within in each food group.
For example, while MyPlate recommends about a fourth of your plate consist of protein, not all proteins are created equally and some are healthier than others.
Of course, “Americans with busy lives” is code for “Americans who can’t pause to consider their food choices because there’s a marathon on TLC and the TV trays are not ready.” Apparently, it is also code for “People who can’t distinguish between healthy foods and foods that cause heart attacks.” So how exactly can Michelle save us from destroying our bodies?
While the goals of MyPlate are well-intentioned and admirable, it glosses over crucial information about dietary health. The easiest way to communicate what foods are healthy may not be in a colorful graph or chart, but in old-fashioned education. In a 2008 study published in the Journal of School Health, middle school students instructed in a comprehensive healthy lifestyle education program showed improvement in their eating behaviors and perhaps most promisingly, the kids felt more confident in their ability to eat healthily.
Ah, “old-fashioned education!” Yes, this is what everyone needs. Unfortunately, we are as good as educating ourselves as we are at keeping ourselves healthy, so our FLOTUS might have to get creative. [The Daily Texan]
Blair Burke (blairelinor@gmail.com) obsessively follows Michelle Obama’s every move for “The FLOTUS Files,” which appears every Monday here at your Wonkette.
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"middle school students instructed in a comprehensive healthy lifestyle education program showed improvement in their eating behaviors and perhaps most promisingly,"
Middle schools still exist? I thought the teabaggers required everyone to be home schooled.
Morbidly obtuse.
This socialist indoctrination will not stand. They're trying to cram "not cramming so much down our throats" down our throats!
I take all my nutritional advice from a staff writer at a college newspaper. Whose previous articles all seem to be on pop culture.
I choose lard, lard, and lard. What's wrong with that?
Wasn't that a Monty Python skit?
Jello Biafra side-project with the bros from Ministry?
Behold, the power of Lard.
It might be the whole moderation concept. My mom, who remains tall and slender in her late 60s, still laments the social unacceptability of using lard…particularly with respect to french fries. This is, of course, the one-two times a year she makes fries and in opposition to the 6-7 days per average week that her cooking has always resembled "MyPlate" with nary a processed item to be found. Nah, wait, never mind…I'm trying to apply reason. Sometimes I'm just so stupid.
I love your mom!
Nothing wrong with lard. Way better for you than soya oil, or god forbid, Crisco.
You should probably try some LardLite®
50% less lard? (In all honesty, I avoid lard like the plague–the only time it's unavoidable for me is when I have authentic Mexican food).
"Unfortunately, Americans are so accustomed to killing themselves with food that even those wishing to follow our FLOTUS’ lead have no idea how to do so"
How about a simple statement such as, "Put down the cookie, Bristol, it's not love"?
My food philosophy is: stop eating, you greedy fuck.
Don't eat the whole portion you're given at most restaurants, what makes you hear '1/2 pound of beef', and say sure, pile it on!
Or to think: triple cheeseburger, what am I, a fag? I need 4 patties and extra special jizz sauce
Back your fucking ass up off of the table
And it will make your virginity get lost.
There is a big debate among us teabaggers as to whether MyPlate is even constitutional. Both Mark Levin and my pet rat, Jimmy, say it is not.
I assume bigger clothes make more money for manufacturers and thus put more cash into the economy. WHY does the Obama family hate AMERICAN BUSINESS.
So, Bristol had her first drink and the same night she had her first sausage?
Yes, she went camping with someone that she knew wasn't a boy scout and now she is trying to spin the story into her being an unwilling victim of Levi, earning his date rape merit badge.
"Girls, don't get drunk and lose your cherry like I did." (That will be $250,000 please.)
And it makes so much sense that she had previously planned on marrying Levi if this story that she waited three years to tell were true.
All hail Bartles & James
Learning about health leads to wanting healthcare. And there is your slippery slope.
The education program is called No Fat Person Left Behind.
As a Fat Person I have to say that if this program goes into affect, ya'll are gonna have to walk real slow.
Hey Michelle, if only you can get Americans to say “Supersize This”™ at the fast food counter, we might start seeing some belly-reduction.
middle school students instructed in a comprehensive healthy lifestyle education program showed improvement in their eating behaviors and perhaps most promisingly, the kids felt more confident in their ability to eat healthily.
Que Glenn Beck's Nazi-fascist-Commie-Sorros-ET-Buy guns & Gold because the FLOTUS and TIDES is indoctrinating your children to hate the Israeli mossad bat shit crazy rant in 4…3…2…
I think Beck's beaten you to the punch (and the anus burgers) already.
~
I love how a guy who promotes known anti-semitic authors now claims he's a friend of the Jews. ASS HOLE! I hate that pudgy air head.
We teach them about healthy eating and they eat healthily. Maybe we should teach them about safe, responsible sex next.
Yeah, that happened during the Clinton administration. It was really funny how the improvements in teen pregnancy and STD rates backslid with Bush-era abstinence only programs. Too bad Brisdull isn't a little bit older, maybe she would have understood–drunky or not–about where babies come from. Given her mama, though, maybe not.
Cows?
Urbanized Calorie Tents.
And where did Michelle say that MyPlate was a replacement for "old – fashioned" food education? Did I miss where she said we can all throw out everything we learned about nutrition and just rely on a chart now?
If I were a conspiracy type, I'd say the person who wrote this column is being paid off by the junk food industry, to make advocates of healthy eating look bad.
Hey peeps,
If you are obese (it is easy to tell by the fact that when you put your hands in your pockets there is a roll in there… no, not a Pizza Roll) you should actually seek out better ways of eating. It really isn't difficult to find a better plan… just ask.
Yes, you will have to put down the anus burger and fries…
D.R.
No wonder the fat Ameros are so confoosed – the My Plate looks nothing like a plate of nachos.
JUST EAT A GODDAMN VEGETABLE
and fruit. Especially bananas, because they prove the existence of God and give Kirk Cameron something to do.
Well to be fair the retailers you're comparing are apples and oranges, or considering Wally world's rep maybe Apples and maggot-ridden roadkill.
What about Waffle House? Cheese covered hash browns? Why does she hate so much goodness?
Now we know why the Iowa caucuses are so important to Presidential contenders. If you're against over eating, you're done.
Replacing anus burgers with feces burgers: A step in the right direction, or a false path?
Stay tuned, Fat Bans!
~
The one that eats its own feces is obviously
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…the talk show host?
Butter for all! http://paulbogan.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/h...
On a trip to Costco yesterday I was sad to find that while they had my size in an awesome gray polo, no other colors had my size. Geez, I wear a L. There was however an ample supply of XXL, 2XXL and 3XXL. I am left to wonder if this is a good thing or forbodes of some hideous future trampling event.
On the positive side: cheap colourful tents!
I don't see anything in this plan that involves shaming and humiliating the Fatsos.
Food Education Fail.
My business idea of the day! I'm opening a fast-food chain that sells plates of green beans and beets, spinach and three-bean salad.
Can we add in big breasted waitstaff? What will you name this establishment?
Yes/"My Business Idea".
Genius!
Sounds like Sweetwater Organics is trying to branch out.
On Diners/Drive-ins- the host was going to visit a place that served beet sliders. I missed it.
The House of Gas?
This is merely Michelle's not so subtle plan to thwart the sales figures on EVERYTHING that Wal-Mart sells.
Good for her. What with the Supremes voting against women's class action lawsuit against Walmart for sex discrimination, I say, boycott the Walton family bastards. They suck up a large portion of the monetary supply in this country in exchange for misery and shit.
I like MyPlate because of its lack of a vertical scale. Protein may only be allowed to take up a quarter of the plate's surface area, but I see no guideline forbidding me from building a bacon tower on that footprint.
My menu is inspired by efficient urban planning, that's all.
Bacon Jenga? It is a breakfast game.
It works for me.
Vimes carefully lifted the top of the bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich and smiled inwardly. Good old Cheery. She knew what a A href="http://chroniccravings.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/_mg_4251.jpg?w=415&h=297"> Vimes BLT was all about. It was about having to lift up quite a lot of crispy bacon before you found the miserable skulking vegetables. You might never notice them at all. …
… “I’m sure you intend to, Sam, but you look like a horrible warning,” said Sybil. “When did you last eat?”
“I had a lettuce, tomato, and bacon sandwich, dear,” he said, endeavouring by tone of voice to suggest that the bacon had been a mere condiment rather than a slab barely covered by the bread. …
Sir Terry Pratchett, Thud!
Ever see Dick Butkus in a mu-mu?
Real dyke, that one.
Well I have seen the pictures of the people of Wal-Mart, does that count?
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
Size 124 is the new size 2.
I get the image of a futuristic clothing that acts as a cloaking device to bend light around the mass of the wearer.
Then, I get the image of a disembodied head (complete with weiner package chins) floating above flabby arms steering the HoverRound though the snack food aisle.
clothes with sizes in the triple digits.
Triple digits is nothing. Here in Michigan a person is considered "pleasingly plump" if he or she takes a quadruple digit (XXXL).
It looks like in order to be healthy, you have to eat everything on your plate.
That's exactly how a lot of eating disorders get started.
It's also how my poor uncle Verne ended up choking to death on his fork.
As they said on the Onion maybe we need to start small and just stop getting melted cheese on fucking everything.
Michelle Obama versus American obesity?
The phrase "pissing on a forest fire" comes to mind.
To amurkans, dieting means picking the double meat whopper with instead of the triple meat.
What I'm dying to know is where truly tiny people find clothing? Kids' section? At 5'9" and a "normalish" build, but by no menas skeletal, there is no fucking way I should ever be buying in the 2 to 4 range. There was a time when it was reasonable…3rd and 4th grade.
Kool-Aid Pickles!?!
What the fucking fuck?? If those people put half the energy they devote to engineering new ways of slow motion suicide into technological innovation we'd already have those fucking jet-packs they been promising us for years.
I did a Googling for this & found the CBS News write-up of the allegations. I think about 5% of Bristol's narrative is true, is what I mean.
It's not that hard to get people to eat healthy. I convinced my kids to eat broccoli this weekend. And all I had to do was dip it in some batter and deep-fry it.
I put the Cheetos on the top shelf so I at least have to stretch a little in order to get at them.
Brilliant! You gotta be burning, what, at least a quarter-Cheeto with that strenuous activity!
Stay thin, my friend, stay thin.
Oh, and pass the fried clams, wouldja?
At least. And then I burn up more walking back to the reclin-o-lounger.
You want tartar sauce with that?
Well, I think we earned it, didn't we?
Where do deep fried snickers bars fit on this plate? Why does she hate Merkin food so much?
Here's a word many USMericans would do well to learn: MODERATION.
Unfortunately, it seems that the only thing teabaggers, rednecks and skoal rebels know how to moderate is a minstrel show making fun of primary candidates.
http://wonkette.com/447880/obama-impersonator-thr...
"Here's a word many USMericans would do well to learn: MODERATION."
Not all USMericans post on discussion forums, so they don't know about moderation.
Snappy comments are deservedly the province of Wonkette regulars (thank you all for your consistently brilliant and incentive wit)–I'll stick to something more serious:
When conscription began in the US in preparation for WWII the US military was surprised to find how poor the general physical condition was of the average 18-21 year-old. It was demonstrably because e of the poor nutrition imposed by the Great Depression ( and not due to lazy kids lacking exercise from spending hours on their asses listening to the radio or spending time 'downloading' hoochie-coochie dancer reels from peep-show machines).
Similarly the British found their military-age youth in poor shape too, but through rationing and the application of a very simple rule–"meat and two veg" in proportion, regardless of volume, general public health noticeably improved during the war, and post-war comparisons with the modern condition have demonstrated that the disciplines of the WWI diet (along with all the exercise of digging-out from rubble, having to ride bicycles and jitterbugging with American GI's) resulted in a standard of good health that hasn't been seen since.
So you're saying we need more wars? Hot Damn!
Ooh…. ummm… well… maybe wars with reasonable justification run by people with reasonable amounts of competence, with an explicit end-state in mind?
Sure it seems like an ambitious trade of effort for a result, but no pain no gain, right? .
Dreamer.
consistently brilliant and incentive wit
Wait, did you just 'incentivize' wit?
Fucking MBA.
When I was a kid, even the few porkers I knew were subject to the draft. If you were out of shape, they'd whip you into shape or kill you trying. Now, with our all volunteer military, there's a neighbor kid that's been rejected from the US Army because she's too fat. WTF!
Well of course conservative America is pissed, the left off the best color, deep fried to a golden brown.
If the Obamas don't stop antagonizing Plus-Sized America, they're gonna be facing a Muu-Muu Rebellion
rimshot
Combine Health and History…oh wait, nevermind.
"Not all proteins are created equally" from the Supreme Court case Plessy v. Fatass.
Even if you surgically applied the Three-Fifths compromise on these blubber globes, they'd still be whales.
Damn, I thought Michelle was jiggy with it! Nobody goes to MyPlate anymore – all the kewl kidz use PlateBook.
"Dear Penthouse Jr., I never thought this could happen to me…"
Teabaggers know that following any diet supported by FLOTUS is designed to make their grandchildren marry black people and hate America.
Teenagers should be required to engage in homosexual sex activities across racial, ethnic, and income boundaries.
That's the only way we'll end discrimination.
Plate? Silly out-of-touch FLOTUS. Nobody knows what a plate is in 'Merika. We all eat out of wax paper and Fry-Holders.
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