Opinion: Time to Embrace Anti-Obesity Campaign

(March 24) -- There are far too many fat children in America. It's impolite to say this so bluntly, but it's better to be impolite than sit idle as our youth repeat the same mistakes we as adults have collectively made.

Following Sunday's historic vote on health care, it's only right to point out that the eating and exercise habits of many American adults puts a huge strain on our health care system.

A study published in July by the journal Health Affairs revealed that obesity-related health spending has doubled in the past decade.

A more recent report by Emory University confirms that unless something drastic changes, 108 million Americans will be considered obese by 2018. Such a collective weight gain could drive up health care costs by $344 billion.

In order to prevent such a disastrous scenario, it's imperative that we get behind efforts like those implemented by Michelle Obama that seek to educate children about nutrition and take companies that knowingly market unhealthy foods to kids to task.

A study from a University of North Carolina researcher published earlier this month concluded that children snack almost three times a day in the United States and get about 27 percent of their daily calories from salty, fatty and sugary treats.

Another researcher found that half of the country's states have no nutritional standards for foods sold outside the government's school lunch program.

Both studies suggest that these empty calories are fueling the childhood weight gains that produce expensive diseases in adulthood.

Like most health and social ills in this country, minorities bear a greater share of the struggle. A new Kaiser Permanente study states that extreme obesity affects one in 10 minority children.

But no good effort goes uncriticized these days. And the first lady's campaign is getting barbs shot at it from both sides.

Glenn Beck has essentially written off Obama as the Hugo Chavez of food, alleging: "They'll limit what we can watch on TV, what ads we can run and how long we can watch. No doubt we'll start mandating certain kind of activities as part of this wonderful government campaign."

Joining him in spreading this conspiracy of convenience is Michelle Malkin, who wrote that Obama's fight against childhood obesity is nothing more than a front to fatten the pockets of the Service Employees International Union.

On the left, Salon writer Kate Harding expressed fear that this initiative could play on the "fat phobia" plaguing the country, writing: "I wish you'd consider focusing on Health at Every Size instead of childhood obesity."

Judging from Obama's speech last week, I don't peg her to be a snack Nazi.

As she explained to Newsweek last week, "I'm all in favor of good snacks. We grew up with snacks and chips. But we have to exercise more."

Obama also encouraged parents to use common sense, but as Beck and Malkin illustrate, common sense isn't always so common.

Obama isn't revoking snack privileges, she's advocating that parents monitor what their children snack on and the physical activity needed to work it off.

And she has stated that this project is not about vanity, but rather "about how our kids feel and how they feel about themselves."

Regardless of how one feels about whether or not Obama is using fear to push nutrition, the inconvenient truth is there are plenty of reasons to worry about the health of America's kids ... and the time to act is now.