Let's Move Campaign Analysis

When Barack Obama was elected as president back in 2008 first lady, Michelle Obama, took action to end the childhood obesity crisis in America. Her ‘Let’s Move’ campaign was aiming towards ending childhood obesity once and for all. The many approaches she took were acceptable starts to combat this issue, however, her ideas she followed through with didn’t seem to work, as childhood obesity rates continued to increase. As the rates for childhood obesity continue to rise, the citizens of America are questioning who’s going to stop it and how they plan to fix it. There are many factors that have allowed for childhood obesity to become a major issue in the nation, and sometimes changing or fixing these factors are easier said than done. But who
In order to face this epidemic, Michelle and her team in her campaign focused on two things to end childhood obesity: fixing what children eat, and getting them to exercise. But because facing the powerful food industry was already a challenge; Michelle focused moreso on children increasing their exercise habits. According to an article titled, “How Big Food Corporations Watered Down Michelle Obama’s ‘Let’s Move’ Campaign” author Aviva Shen states, “These remarks gave food reform advocates hope that “Let’s Move” was taking on processed food manufacturers’ exploitative overuse of sweeteners and fats, a main cause of the obesity epidemic. But a little over a year later, Mrs. Obama backed away from this hard truth and redirected “Let’s Move” to focus on exercise…” (Shen). Because Michelle directed her campaign towards children getting exercise, she limited her efforts on ensuring that children eat healthier, even though the non-nutritious food was the major factor that allowed for childhood obesity to become a problem in the first place. Getting children to exercise was easier for her and her campaign members to achieve rather than changing what children eat. The author specifically stated “backed away from this hard truth…”