Women’s History Month – Michelle Obama
6 Mar
Contrary to what you might believe – due to my love of peanut butter kandy kakes and hot chocolate – nutrition/eating well is a huge interest of mine. I was pleased to see that this is the issue that the First Lady chose to take on as her official debut in a high-profile policy role. The White House, led by Michelle Obama, recently announced an initiative aimed at revamping the way American children eat and play — reshaping school lunches, playgrounds and even medical checkups — with the goal of eliminating childhood obesity within a generation.
This is just one reason why I chose Michelle Obama as my first feature for Women’s History Month. (And suddenly this feels like a middle school essay)
For one, she’s beautiful and she has amazing style…something I have not seen in my lifetime as far as the White House is concerned. This may be meaningless to some people, but for me, style is right up there with character. If you think that makes me vain, go away. She embraces her fuller figure and she dresses accordingly. She doesn’t hide her hips and thighs, or try to stuff them into dowdy suits (Hillary. cough.cough), she cinches that waist and flaunts it tastefully.
I think she’s quite brave. As a wife, if my husband came to me and said “I want to run for president of the United States” let alone “I want to be the first black president of the United States” I would need more than a few minutes in a warm bath to think it through.
Of course, I’d stand behind anything my husband wanted to do…but it takes a strong woman to support a high profile career of any kind. Especially one that puts your family under constant scrutiny. Oh, and especially one that involves running the most powerful nation in the country during one of its most trying times.
The Let’s Move campaign means a lot to me, because as Michelle explains, “It’s not about weight … it’s about fitness and it’s about overall nutrition.” The world needs to know this. People don’t have to be model thin, perfect, sexy, love-handle free, bereft of cellulite. Love your body for what it is – after you suffer through a brief cardiovascular workout and give your body the nutrients it needs. And for god’s sake – stop eating McDonalds, stop drinking soda, and don’t for the love of baby jesus justify eating a chai/mocha/spiced/pumpkin latte with whipped cream every day.
All joking aside, we have to take care of our bodies. As a nation, we’re disgustingly obese. We wonder why people are afraid of universal healthcare in this country. How about because we eat and eat and eat and never exercise and THEN go to the doctor for a pill or surgery when our bodies react with clogged arteries, high blood pressure, heart attack or diabetes. Perhaps if you lifted a few weights and had ones less diet coke a week, you wouldn’t have back pain.
What was I talking about? Oh. So the Let’s Move campaign aims to reduce childhood obesity in the United States within a generation. Obama asked parents, teachers, physicians, coaches and kids to get involved and suggested they look at the new Let’s Move Web site for helpful tips, strategies and updates on beating obesity in children.
So, thank you Michelle. To this crazy broad, just this one task has made you a woman to honor. I hope that your campaign succeeds and that we’ll be talking about it for generations to come.
please note that for some reason this blog does not support characters other than letters in titles. of course i know that it’s “women’s or womenz” duh.
I really like her.
And in an interview she said she first began to work out and go to the gym in the morning so her hubby would get up with the kids.
Michelle is all kinds of fabulous. The fact that she supported him and he wanted to be President at this point in time, is beyond amazing. They do their jobs with such style, I have to figure if they can get up in the morning and face the mess here, then I must get up and do my part. And, their daughters stand testament to the fine job they are doing at home.
Being beyond 40 myself, I have decided it isn’t about the numbers on the scale or the size of the clothes, it is about being healthy and feeling good and being strong, especially for my kids.
Love.your.blog.
“They do their jobs with such style, I have to figure if they can get up in the morning and face the mess here, then I must get up and do my part.”
Great point and well said! Thank you so much for stopping by!
Very well said. I love MIchelle’s dedication in tackling this. . .ahem. . .growing. . .problem!
I live in the UK and we have the dubious distinction of being rated as having the worst diets in Europe!
Personally I am horrified by obesity but equally horrified by stick thinness – the happy medium is to eat well and EXERCISE and if the only way to make people realise that is for a high profile person (and Michelle Obama is pretty high profile even over here!) to take that campaign on board and run with it then good on her. I just want to add that last year I turned 51 and decided it was high time to start crossing off stuff on my list “Things I want to do before my kids have me committed”. In October I ran my first marathon – I run my 2nd one next month and love the buzz running gives me!
@seekingelevation – good one!
@madame Good for you!! Marathon people always intimidate me. Oh, the endurance!