Within the news, a single movement or action acts like a seed growing into a leafy plant; the action turns into a story, and from that story other stories branch off and grow like leaves. This plant-like network of stories is called a press sphere. One bunch of stories comes from the single act of Michelle Obama, planting the seed of combating obesity in America’s eyes.
Recently, Michelle Obama celebrated the anniversary of her Let’s Move campaign to kick off an eventful second year. She has been touring around the country to change school menus and encourage children to stay active for an hour each day. As the end of the first year arrived, Mrs. Obama tried to refresh her campaign to keep receiving media attention and spread her message to all of America.
Several blogs regularly track Mrs. Obama’s movements during her campaign. These blogs include The White House Blog and the Let’s Move Blog. When the first year anniversary came on February 9th, the Let’s Move Blog posted an article about Michelle Obama’s trip to Iowa, where she danced with kids and gave a speech to give kudos to the state of Iowa for trying to stay healthy by eating nutritionally and exercising (Curtis 1). The White House Blog forwarded this exact post to try to reach an audience that the other blog may have not reached.
Besides blogs posting about this anniversary day, The New York Times described the day to readers in a short article by Mark Landler. Although no one participated in commenting on this article to create a discussion, the New York Times linked other articles related to the Let’s Move Campaign to keep the story alive. An article, “New Rules for School Meals Aim at Reducing Obesity,” that the New York Times featured that received much attention discussed the how the Obama administration announced new rules for subsidized school lunches. These rules add more healthy food – like vegetables and fruit – and less healthy options from foods – like fatty milk and excess potatoes (Nixon 1).
Many people responded to this article in the comment section. From sixty-two comments, a few main ideas were presented. One idea was that these rules imposed by the government will cost schools more money, and that the government will not help pay for these changes in the school lunches. Though the additional cost was mentioned in the article, no system on how to support the financial aspect of the program was mentioned, and no other article tells of a White House plan to pay for it either. For now, that discussion is at a dead end. The next point that was shared across several of the comments was pure support of getting kids to eat healthier. In retaliation to the pure support, one person commented on the article by bringing in a new aspect to the discussion: whether the kids will eat the healthy foods that the government requires schools to carry. This anonymous person claims that the kids will not eat all the healthy food that is given to them and instead will throw it away and waste it. He backs up his claim with a link to another news article from CBS Los Angeles. This article reports how kids stopped buying school lunches and brought their own “junk food” to school. With this article, the notion of Michelle Obama’s campaign to integrate healthy practices into schools and children’s lives is challenged.
However, this challenge has not stopped Mrs. Obama from promoting her campaign against obesity to America. Michelle Obama appears on talk shows such as Ellen DeGeneres and Jay Leno. After appearing on these shows, Mrs. Obama and the Let’s Move campaign continue to stay in the news. The Huffington Post included an article that described Michelle Obama’s fun interactions with Ellen DeGeneres which included a push-up contest between the two. Having seen Mrs. Obama do push-ups, the article claims that she is a great role model for the Let’s Move campaign that she is leading. The Huffington Post also includes other events that Mrs. Obama has done to promote the Let’s Move campaign like dancing with school children and appearing on the TV show iCarly. In addition to continuing the story, the webpage displays constant tweets about Michelle Obama that feed in to the public reaction of her campaign to reduce childhood obesity.
Other visits with talk-show hosts created responses from new papers as well. Michelle Obama visited the Jay Leno show and had him eat healthy snacks on his show as the Chicago Sun-Times reports. The article “Michelle Obama Pushes Jay Leno to Eat Healthy Foods” begins by describing the interaction between Mrs. Obama and Jay Leno, but swiftly switches its focus from her mission to her husbands: the re-election. It goes on to discuss how Mrs. Obama’s campaign could affect the re-election of her husband.
Returning from the shifted focus from Michelle Obama’s initiative to her husband’s re-election, the Let’s Move Blog links a post about her visit to the Top Chef from the anniversary post – mentioned at the beginning. The Let’s Move Blog describes how all the chefs tied because “when you pair great chefs with schools ‘everybody wins’” (Curtis 1). In order to further promote the story, the Let’s Move Blog gives a link to a website that shows the new project of chefs pairing with schools for good-tasting, healthy food.
In addition to making appearances on popular television shows, the White House Blog notes that Michelle Obama met at the restaurant Olive Garden to discuss healthy eating habits with parents and change the menu of the kids menu to offer healthier choices. Below this post, the White House Blog forwards an article that Michelle Obama wrote from CNN. In her article, “Working Together for the Health of America’s Children,” Mrs. Obama draws on the actions of congress, schools, chefs, celebrities, and food manufacturers to show that people have a unified effort to help her cause.
One article from CBS News wraps up all of the others when discussing Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign. The article, “Michelle Obama Marks 2nd Year of Obesity Campaign,” touches on the anniversary celebration, the visits to schools, the appearances on celebrity talk shows, and the visit to Olive Garden. The article continues to extend the discussion by saying that Michelle Obama has in fact made a great self-image for herself and will be “an asset for the president’s re-election efforts” (1). In addition to this, the article uses the opinion of Marion Nestle – a food and nutrition professor at New York University, to give kudos to Mrs. Obama because she has no real legal power, yet she has brought this issue to national attention and is trying to create change. Nestle then goes on to comment that only time will tell if her campaign will actually impact the health and counter the obesity problem that younger generations face.
In adding to the press sphere, I agree with Nestle that Michelle Obama should be commended for her effort and success of bringing bad nutrition and obesity to the forefront of American thoughts when concerning children. Changing the way children eat in schools is a large part in promoting healthy generations, but efforts need to be extended to teaching parents how to feed their children healthy food for an all-around effect. Also, when the government changes rules for school food, it needs to come up with a way to finance these rule changes so that the school is not completely footing the bill, as many people commented on the New York Times. This story affects every single American in direct or indirect ways. It affects parents and children directly since they are they individuals trying to change to or maintain healthy lifestyles. It affects the rest of us Americans because obesity is a huge health risk in America, and all generations need to stay healthy to reduce healthcare costs, and live longer and more fulfilling lives.
With the importance of America’s health, the series of stories arising from the press sphere all should get attention from every age group in America. Within this plant-like structure of stories, each leaf reaches a different audience; whether it is people who enjoy comedy shows, people who keep up on politics through blogs like the White House Blog, or just people who have an interest in the news and regularly read newspapers. Through the outreaching leaves, everyone can unite under the knowledge of common information and hopefully help act in a way that will benefit America’s health in the future like Michelle Obama aims to do.
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