iReporter asks Michelle Obama

This post was written by iReport intern Jordan Sarver. Check back soon on the blog to learn more about him!

As someone with an interest in health disparities, I know that health care reform isn't the sole solution to health problems facing Americans. It seems many iReporters know this too. We received dozens of questions for Michelle Obama's Larry King Live interview and many of them were about health related issues, among other topics.

The first lady appeared on Larry King Live to talk about her "Let's Move" initiative a nationwide campaign to combat childhood obesity that launched yesterday. During her interview, she answered a question from an iReporter about improving school lunches.

Amie Hamlin, aka HealthyFood, asked Mrs. Obama how we can make children's health a true priority with the funding to back it up. Hamlin is the executive director of the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food.

In response, Mrs. Obama said, "We've got to provide parents with the information and the tools they need to make better decisions, but we also need to significantly change the quality of food that kids are getting at school."

After hearing the interview, Hamlin said she was encouraged by Mrs. Obama's "focus on the quality of the food," but she also has some additional concerns. "I am very encouraged by her focus on the quality of the food, but it will take more than $10 billion over 10 years to make this happen. That's less than an additional 20 cents per meal. That's not going to make the whole meal quality food, but it is a start."

Hamlin also submitted a follow up video with her thoughts on Obama's answer.

As always, it's great to have everyday people affected by changes in policy directly address those who help create it. Thanks Amie for your question, and keep an eye on the iReport assignment desk for more opportunities to ask CNN guests your questions. i know at my school they attempted to devise new lunch menus that were more healthy and better for students. the only result was smaller portions, wheat bread, and more expensive charges.

In other words, right now you send your child to school, and it costs $2.00 per meal. You pay that, as the parent.

If ten years from now you are paying $2.20, thats not unsual.

When I went to school my parents paid .75 cents for me. Today I pay $2.00 for my daughter.

Adding the federal government to the mix, doesn't actually do anything.

What you are forgetting is money is fungible. They can send more money to the schools, who then in turn don't have to raise the price on meals for parents doubtful. Or they can take the taxpayer provided contribution (send via property taxes) and spend it on other things, while taking this revenue stream from the federal government.

The money element of this, actually changes nothing.

What might change something, is simply requiring better food.

By the way, subsidizing the cost of food is always a bad idea, and and is one reason for obsesity upside down decisions about food.

If you are worried about the poor, they don't pay for meals already and again has nothing to do with the obesity situation, except to note, that poor people are more likely to be obese, not less.

I applaud Ms. Obama for bringing the spotlight on a real problem, but she gets no marks for simply exploiting a problem to pass money to her political base, which will do nothing to fix the problem.

One thing that few people are talking about, is the country doesn't actually produce enough quality food, in order that the whole country could even eat quality food putting aside costs for now.

In other words, farm grown fish is not healthy compared to wild caught fish but you can't actually catch any more fish in the wild.

By the same token, the beef from corn fed cows is not actually as healthy as wild grain fed cows. But who said we have enough granging area to produce enough wild grain cows?

If anyone would take a moment to study economics, if the supply cannot change, and you drive costs down all you have done is created a shortage.

We eat hormone stuffed chickens for a reason. And its going to be hard to change, that. We'd have to do a massive change to our agriculture, that would massive harm its 'output'.

The problem is much more difficult than this.

Now, the exercise part of Ms. Obama's initiative, while noting its nothing new, Reagan went on a similar initiative and it didn't work.

still exercise is something people can do but its not lack of education.

I wish that myth were true that people lack education, and you give them education and its solves the problem.iReporter asks Michelle Obama

This post was written by iReport intern Jordan Sarver. Check back soon on the blog to learn more about him!

As someone with an interest in health disparities, I know that health care reform isn't the sole solution to health problems facing Americans. It seems many iReporters know this too. We received dozens of questions for Michelle Obama's Larry King Live interview and many of them were about health related issues, among other topics.

The first lady appeared on Larry King Live to talk about her "Let's Move" initiative a nationwide campaign to combat childhood obesity that launched yesterday. During her interview, she answered a question from an iReporter about improving school lunches.

Amie Hamlin, aka HealthyFood, asked Mrs. Obama how we can make children's health a true priority with the funding to back it up. Hamlin is the executive director of the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food.

In response, Mrs. Obama said, "We've got to provide parents with the information and the tools they need to make better decisions, but we also need to significantly change the quality of food that kids are getting at school."

After hearing the interview, Hamlin said she was encouraged by Mrs. Obama's "focus on the quality of the food," but she also has some additional concerns. "I am very encouraged by her focus on the quality of the food, but it will take more than $10 billion over 10 years to make this happen. That's less than an additional 20 cents per meal. That's not going to make the whole meal quality food, but it is a start."

Hamlin also submitted a follow up video with her thoughts on Obama's answer.

As always, it's great to have everyday people affected by changes in policy directly address those who help create it. Thanks Amie for your question, and keep an eye on the iReport assignment desk for more opportunities to ask CNN guests your questions. i know at my school they attempted to devise new lunch menus that were more healthy and better for students. the only result was smaller portions, wheat bread, and more expensive charges.

In other words, right now you send your child to school, and it costs $2.00 per meal. You pay that, as the parent.

If ten years from now you are paying $2.20, thats not unsual.

When I went to school my parents paid .75 cents for me. Today I pay $2.00 for my daughter.

Adding the federal government to the mix, doesn't actually do anything.

What you are forgetting is money is fungible. They can send more money to the schools, who then in turn don't have to raise the price on meals for parents doubtful. Or they can take the taxpayer provided contribution (send via property taxes) and spend it on other things, while taking this revenue stream from the federal government.

The money element of this, actually changes nothing.

What might change something, is simply requiring better food.

By the way, subsidizing the cost of food is always a bad idea, and and is one reason for obsesity upside down decisions about food.

If you are worried about the poor, they don't pay for meals already and again has nothing to do with the obesity situation, except to note, that poor people are more likely to be obese, not less.

I applaud Ms. Obama for bringing the spotlight on a real problem, but she gets no marks for simply exploiting a problem to pass money to her political base, which will do nothing to fix the problem.

One thing that few people are talking about, is the country doesn't actually produce enough quality food, in order that the whole country could even eat quality food putting aside costs for now.

In other words, farm grown fish is not healthy compared to wild caught fish but you can't actually catch any more fish in the wild.

By the same token, the beef from corn fed cows is not actually as healthy as wild grain fed cows. But who said we have enough granging area to produce enough wild grain cows?

If anyone would take a moment to study economics, if the supply cannot change, and you drive costs down all you have done is created a shortage.

We eat hormone stuffed chickens for a reason. And its going to be hard to change, that. We'd have to do a massive change to our agriculture, that would massive harm its 'output'.

The problem is much more difficult than this.

Now, the exercise part of Ms. Obama's initiative, while noting its nothing new, Reagan went on a similar initiative and it didn't work.

still exercise is something people can do but its not lack of education.

I wish that myth were true that people lack education, and you give them education and its solves the problem.iReporter asks Michelle Obama

This post was written by iReport intern Jordan Sarver. Check back soon on the blog to learn more about him!

As someone with an interest in health disparities, I know that health care reform isn't the sole solution to health problems facing Americans. It seems many iReporters know this too. We received dozens of questions for Michelle Obama's Larry King Live interview and many of them were about health related issues, among other topics.

The first lady appeared on Larry King Live to talk about her "Let's Move" initiative a nationwide campaign to combat childhood obesity that launched yesterday. During her interview, she answered a question from an iReporter about improving school lunches.

Amie Hamlin, aka HealthyFood, asked Mrs. Obama how we can make children's health a true priority with the funding to back it up. Hamlin is the executive director of the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food.

In response, Mrs. Obama said, "We've got to provide parents with the information and the tools they need to make better decisions, but we also need to significantly change the quality of food that kids are getting at school."

After hearing the interview, Hamlin said she was encouraged by Mrs. Obama's "focus on the quality of the food," but she also has some additional concerns. "I am very encouraged by her focus on the quality of the food, but it will take more than $10 billion over 10 years to make this happen. That's less than an additional 20 cents per meal. That's not going to make the whole meal quality food, but it is a start."

Hamlin also submitted a follow up video with her thoughts on Obama's answer.

As always, it's great to have everyday people affected by changes in policy directly address those who help create it. Thanks Amie for your question, and keep an eye on the iReport assignment desk for more opportunities to ask CNN guests your questions. i know at my school they attempted to devise new lunch menus that were more healthy and better for students. the only result was smaller portions, wheat bread, and more expensive charges.

In other words, right now you send your child to school, and it costs $2.00 per meal. You pay that, as the parent.

If ten years from now you are paying $2.20, thats not unsual.

When I went to school my parents paid .75 cents for me. Today I pay $2.00 for my daughter.

Adding the federal government to the mix, doesn't actually do anything.

What you are forgetting is money is fungible. They can send more money to the schools, who then in turn don't have to raise the price on meals for parents doubtful. Or they can take the taxpayer provided contribution (send via property taxes) and spend it on other things, while taking this revenue stream from the federal government.

The money element of this, actually changes nothing.

What might change something, is simply requiring better food.

By the way, subsidizing the cost of food is always a bad idea, and and is one reason for obsesity upside down decisions about food.

If you are worried about the poor, they don't pay for meals already and again has nothing to do with the obesity situation, except to note, that poor people are more likely to be obese, not less.

I applaud Ms. Obama for bringing the spotlight on a real problem, but she gets no marks for simply exploiting a problem to pass money to her political base, which will do nothing to fix the problem.

One thing that few people are talking about, is the country doesn't actually produce enough quality food, in order that the whole country could even eat quality food putting aside costs for now.

In other words, farm grown fish is not healthy compared to wild caught fish but you can't actually catch any more fish in the wild.

By the same token, the beef from corn fed cows is not actually as healthy as wild grain fed cows. But who said we have enough granging area to produce enough wild grain cows?

If anyone would take a moment to study economics, if the supply cannot change, and you drive costs down all you have done is created a shortage.

We eat hormone stuffed chickens for a reason. And its going to be hard to change, that. We'd have to do a massive change to our agriculture, that would massive harm its 'output'.

The problem is much more difficult than this.

Now, the exercise part of Ms. Obama's initiative, while noting its nothing new, Reagan went on a similar initiative and it didn't work.

still exercise is something people can do but its not lack of education.

I wish that myth were true that people lack education, and you give them education and its solves the problem.