It’s not uncommon that the first lady takes up a cause while occupying the White House. In the early 1900s, Ellen Wilson, a descendant of slaves, helped improve housing for Black residents of Washington DC. A few decades later, Eleanor Roosevelt regularly used her influence to speak on global affairs and domestic issues. In the late 1900s, Eleanor Carter helped allocate funds towards mental health.
Every first lady belongs to the tradition of advocacy that began so long ago. Perhaps none have been more visible in that regard than Michelle Obama.
After reaching the White House, Michelle launched her campaigns, drawing from her experience as a lawyer and public servant. Her various programs included Joining Forces, a group boosting veteran employment, Reach Higher, which encouraged post-high school learning, and Let Girls Learn, which helps girls everywhere stay in school.
Of course, her flagship campaign was Let’s Move!, her effort to combat childhood obesity. In that role, Michelle pushed school districts to offer healthier food choices for students while boosting their exercise, often to those kids’ chagrin. But it’s difficult to argue with the results, which range from better eating to lifelong workout habits.
Perhaps most notably, her work has pushed back against the impact that food deserts have on childhood nutrition. Food deserts are geographic areas in which residents have few or no easy way to purchase healthy foods like fruits and vegetables. Shockingly, almost 18% of the entire country lives in a food desert, which can look like anything from a rural town to a huge suburb. The lack of healthy food options is a complicated issue, resulting from supply chain woes to corporate competition.
Its impact on communities of color is a lot simpler. Such neighborhoods are disproportionately low-income, struggling to afford even nearby supermarket prices. Additionally, fresh fruits and vegetables are more expensive in some areas of the country than processed, unhealthy snacks. This leads to a generational inability to make positive food choices. And thus, the cycle continues.
Michelle Obama’s campaign to improve childhood health and wellbeing almost certainly helped some families escape the food desert cycle. Despite this massive achievement, we shouldn’t let off the gas on this issue. It’s ability to hurt generation-after-generation demands our attention every administration.
