Everyone has heard the old expression, “An army travels on its stomach”.  Everyone, that is, except First Lady Michelle Obama.

Reuters reports:

In an event at Little Rock Air Force Base, Obama announced a new Pentagon obesity and nutritional awareness campaign that will change nutrition standards across the services for the first time in 20 years.

The changes will bring more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and food choices that are lower in fat to 1.45 million troops a day at all 1,100 American military dining facilities in the coming months.

“This isn’t just a drop in the bucket – this is really a big splash,” Obama said.

“It’s happening because our military leaders know it’s not just a diet issue, it’s not just a health issue. This is truly a national security issue,” she said at the base, which already has a pilot program to improve nutritional quality of food available to service members and their families.

Obama cited a recent army study that says more than one quarter of 17- to 24-year-olds are too overweight to serve in the military. Active members of the military are also becoming more overweight, a Pentagon official said, and that causes a “readiness problem.”

“The military is always taking the lead in terms of setting standards,” said Assistant U.S. Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Jonathan Woodson. “Now we have an opportunity to take leadership … as we face this epidemic of obesity.”

Woodson said the U.S. military spends about $4.65 billion in food services each year. It also spends an estimated $1.1 billion a year on medical care associated with excess weight and obesity.

To promote good choices, the military will redesign menus and supply healthier foods in mess halls and in vending machines and snack bars on military bases.

The first lady, who has been doing the rounds of television talk shows and late-night comedy shows to promote her “Let’s Move” campaign to improve the nation’s eating and exercise habits, said changes by the Pentagon would send an important message to the country.

“Simply put, this is America’s entire military once again stepping forward to lead by example,” she told airmen at the base after touring a dining facility.

Whether they want to, or not.

It was intrusive enough when the first lady decided to sic the Food Police on our children, as if America’s parents were not bright enough or responsible enough to feed their own children properly.

The New York Times published the following story on January 25th:

Hoping to combat the growing problem of childhood obesity, the Obama administration on Wednesday announced its long-awaited changes to government-subsidized school meals, a final round of rules that adds more fruits and green vegetables to breakfasts and lunches and reduces the amount of salt and fat.

The announcement came months after the food industry won a vote in Congress to block the administration from carrying out an earlier proposal that would have reduced starchy foods like potatoes and prohibited schools from counting a small amount of tomato paste on a slice of pizza as a vegetable. Under the latest rules, potatoes are not restricted, and tomato paste can qualify as a vegetable serving.

The rules were announced by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Michelle Obama at Parklawn Elementary School in Alexandria, Va.

“As parents, we try to prepare decent meals, limit how much junk food our kids eat and ensure that they have a reasonable balanced diet,” Mrs. Obama said in a statement. “And when we are putting in all that effort the last thing we want is for our hard work to be undone each day in the school cafeteria.”

About 32 million children participate in school meal programs each day. The new rules are a major component of Mrs. Obama’s campaign to reduce the number of overweight children through exercise and better nutrition.

The rules are the first changes in 15 years to the $11 billion school lunch program. They will double the amount of fruits and vegetables children are served in school and will require that all grains served are whole grains.

All milk served must be low fat, and for the first time the rules set limits on levels of salt and trans fats. They also set a minimum and maximum calorie intake per day based on student age.

The government estimates that the rules will add about $3.2 billion in costs to the program, about half the cost of the proposed rules that were blocked last year.

Past First Ladies always took a cause to tackle during their husbands’ terms.

Usually, it was a non-intrusive cause such as literacy or combating hunger in America.

Not, in the case of our globe-trotting (on our dime) present First Lady, “Moochelle” Obama.  Under the guise of battling Childhood Obesity, she has decided to sic the food police on America’s school menus, turning our children into the Liberal Administrations’ own personal lab rats.

Furthermore, now that she has America’s children under her thumb, she has decided that our Best and Brightest need to be eating arugula…or something.

C’mon, Moochelle.  You Libs are already using our military as lab rats in one social engineering experiment…leading to the demise of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.

Our Best and Brightest are grown men and women.  They don’t need you telling them what to eat.

Do Americans a favor, Mrs. Obama.   Stand in front of a full-length mirror, with your back to it, and look over your shoulder.  Perhaps then, you’ll realize just how hypocritical you’re being.

You know…Glass Houses?

Tags:  Moochelle, Childhood Obesity, Food Police