InfoD-Cafe: Michelle Obama takes on childhood obesity (and product labeling)

[Deborah Taylor-Pearce]

I thought Café members might be interested in Michelle Obama's newest 
initiative regarding children's health and nutrition.

She was interviewed by Jim Lehrer of the _PBS HewsHour_ yesterday, 9 
Feb. 2010, with video and text transcript available online at the 
_NewsHour_'s newly-styled website:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june10/firstlady_02-09.html

Obama mentioned redesigning only the labels for soft drinks in her 
interview:

	"The beverage industry today just announced that they're
	going to change their labels on soft drinks, not just the
	ones in stores, but ones in vending machines. So you know,
	the goal is to reach out to the industries that have a role
	to play and have them come up with solutions that make sense."

But I expect she -- as well as schools and companies and trade groups 
looking to participate in the White House initiative -- might be 
responsive to IDers with other creative ideas about how we remake food 
product labels and related educational materials to "nudge" (in the 
sense of _Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and 
Happiness_, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein) families to change 
behaviors and demand more healthy, community-based food alternatives 
... for everyone in the U.S., regardless of income or geographic location.

Deborah
_____

Deborah Taylor-Pearce
dtp at she-philosopher.com