First Lady Michelle Obama has officially conceded. She once held lofty aspirations to help American youth get healthy. Mrs. Obama even took the lead launching the "Let's Move" initiative last year to fight childhood obesity. Before being abruptly terminated on grounds of "pointless" this week, the federal program had broad ambitions to improve the health of our children. Goals ranged from putting healthier food in school lunchrooms to teaching children and their parents about nutrition and physical education.
"I honestly don't know what I thought would happen," the first lady said while announcing the movement's cancellation from the White House press room, "but the more I learn of our eating and exercise habits, the more certain I am that it's long past time to throw in the towel. I can't believe I ever thought I could help you."
For the first time in the history of the United States, the current generation of young people can expect to live shorter lives than their parents.
"Doctors are still keeping up their end of the bargain," Obama said. "We've got more and better medicines than ever, a more thorough understanding of human physiology and health than mankind has ever known. But with each soda our sedentary citizens drink while playing XBox, with every greasy Extra Value Meal another fat teenager shoves down her throat while text messaging, we are lashing out against, well, against living."
One in three American kids is classified as overweight or obese. You can double that already staggering figure for American adults. Even ambulances are getting bigger in an effort to keep up with expanding Americans. The UnitedHealth Group's Center for Health Reform & Modernization declared that if changes aren't made, by 2020 over 50 percent of America will have diabetes or prediabetes. Indeed, the country appears in dire need of an effort just like Mrs. Obama's "Let's Move," and she attributed "scary" statistics like those to her original motivation. A year later she is appalled to have actually received widespread criticism for her efforts.
"There I was, like some patron saint of lost causes, trying to strike a blow for common-sense moderation, and I get labeled a fat hypocrite if I'm ever seen with a bag of potato chips in my hand," Obama said. "I never demanded we outlaw the hamburger; I recommended people try to limit unhealthy foods, maybe add something green to their diet. I even started an organic vegetable garden at the White House!"
Obama felt further vilified in recent months for encouraging breastfeeding. Studies have demonstrated the direct link between breastfeeding and lower obesity rates later in life, but critics have been using Mrs. Obama's comments as fodder for ridiculing her.
"The straw that broke the camel's back was definitely the breastfeeding controversy," she said. "You realize a big chunk of America is giving me a hard time for that? They'll manufacture complaints for anything I do. If I was spotted reading a newspaper, I swear half of America would find a way to say I'm out to kill the television industry."
Michelle Obama said she is done trying to help, and even if her husband wins a second term she wants no more to do with a population more than 300 million-strong, filled with people she declared to be "invariably fat, lazy and stupid."
"You can all go screw yourselves!" the first lady told Americans. "You know in France they don't have to deal with this [stuff]." She added, "I suppose the responsible thing to do is remind all those sitting in front of their computer eating cookie dough ice cream out of the carton right now, that this fictional satire is clearly labeled comedy and I never said any of these things."