Friday, 16 May 2025

Michelle Obama Attempts To Rewrite History Of Her Unpopular School Lunch Program: ‘Trying To Be Strategic’


As Michelle Obama continues to make splashy public appearances, many Americans believe she could be gearing up for a political bid of her own.

And whether it’s to prepare for such a campaign or just to repair the damage to her reputation, the former First Lady is now attempting to spin one particularly unpopular policy she initiated.

As Breitbart reported:

Obama made the remarks during an appearance this week on the Not Gonna Lie podcast with Kylie Kelce, asserting that her decision to make a difference with school lunches — and her overall “Let’s Move” initiative — was “strategic” in nature.

“I was trying to be strategic about aligning my agenda with something that was important to the West Wing. And I thought, ‘There’s no way that anyone is going to take issue with trying to make school lunches healthier, getting kids more active,’” she said.

“I was trying to be strategic about aligning my agenda with something that was important to the West Wing. And I thought, ‘There’s no way that anyone is going to take issue with trying to make school lunches healthier, getting kids more active,’” she said.

The wife of former President Barack Obama then appeared to try and take credit for more recent nutrition-related statements made by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., claiming that she said “the same things” during her school lunch initiative, which launched in 2010.

“Just trying to make the next generation healthier than ours and, boy, was I wrong, which is really interesting in these times with the current Secretary of Health and Human Services [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] who is now saying some of the same things that I was saying,” Obama said.

Earlier this year, she marked the 15th anniversary of Let’s Move! with a similar effort to whitewash the widely unpopular program:

Her full statement from above reads:

Fifteen years ago when I was First Lady, Partnership for a Healthier America was founded to improve the health of children in our country alongside my Let’s Move! initiative. We wanted to create a movement that made healthy eating and physical activity the norm — making sure fruits and vegetables were accessible while showing our kids examples of ways they could stay active.

The replies, however, proved that her initiative remains divisive a decade and a half later:

A number of replies also mentioned support for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who hadn’t been confirmed by the Senate at that time:

In that context, it might make sense for Obama to try comparing her initiative to the policies endorsed by Kennedy.

But during Trump’s first term in the White House, he made it clear that he did not approve of his predecessor’s approach to school lunches, as ABC News reported in 2018:

The Trump administration has finalized a rollback of school lunch regulations championed for years by former first lady Michelle Obama.

Under the rules first announced last year, schools are now allowed to offer more flavored milk options, like chocolate. Additionally, the Obama-era efforts to limit sodium content in school lunches have been delayed or partially eliminated. The announcement Thursday doesn’t require schools to make any changes, but allows them to relax restrictions on those products.

The changes will impact 99,000 schools and institutions that feed 30 million children every year, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Here’s some coverage of Michelle Obama’s latest quest for relevance within an increasingly unpopular Democratic Party:

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport.

View the original article here.


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