michelle obamaIn effort to boost the visibility of the “Let’s Move!” Campaign, First Lady Michelle Obama partnered with Partnership for a Healthier America and Hip-Hop Public Health to produce a hip-hop album.

Wholeheartedly believing that recording artists, television stars, and pop-doctors will be able to influence children’s behavior, Dr. Memhet Oz — who appears on the first single, “Everybody” — said he’s optimistic that this album will help curb childhood obesity:

“For years I have known that we need to reach children in the formative years to educate them to live a life of prevention,” said Dr. Mehmet Oz.  “The best way to do this is to build a bridge with the artists that they see on television and listen to. When someone like Doug E. Fresh shows our youngsters that health can be fun and cool, we are winning the battle.”

Some other songs on the album include “Veggie Luv,” “Hip-Hop LEAN,” and “Get Up Sit Up” most of which will be hip-hop based, according to The Grio.

Here’s the thing, we can see that there are tons of fat little kids, of all races, of all ethnicities, all around America. Some of these kids are happy, some are sad, and most are picked on for their size. But most of the target audience of this anti-corpulence album have no ability to affect their circumstance. So it seems this album is saying to kids that’s now it’s their responsibility to educate and persuade whomever provides for them to chose healthier meals for them because they’re fat — and no one wants to be obese.

While these precious, little obese children consider how ask the cafeteria lady for more “Veggie Luv,” the adults continue to pass food policy that arguably promotes obesity. As the farm bills continue to favor corporations and food deserts are filled with Wal-Marts, we’ll continue to see the cheapest food — the food a child can have access to — bought by the working poor.

The Obama administration feels transforming benevolent body-anxiety slogans in catchy hooks, sung over a slapping 808, will help children want to exercise and eat better. Remember the 80s, before there was an “obesity epidemic, when there was a full aisle of VHS kiddie-fitness systems; All it produced was the current crop of 30-year-old body dysmorphic folks and the happy, humiliating language fitness trainer’s use as “motivation.”

I get it … this is better than ignoring an issue that perplexes and scares society, especially parents, but kids will be fine if we focus on the adults who could give a shit about childhood obesity if it fucks with their profit margins.

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2 Comments

  1. How do you feel about Hip Hop food and health activists who are not only creating hip hop oriented health activism music for youths, but have the kids attending workshops or community gardens to learn about alternatives to ‘processed foods’? I have not heard this Michelle Obama promoted album, but I’m thinking more about artists like DJ Cavem Moetavation. All his music promotes healthy living and eating for youths (and adults). Simultaneously, he teaches people about the evils of corporate capitalist kitchen, environmental racism, Monsanto, prison industrial complex. He is a holistic thinker and see all the connections. Yes, not all children have the ability to control their food sources, as they rely on adult for this, but there is something to be said about teaching them/intervening at an early age to start learning, so once they become old enough to affect political and economic change, they have foundational knowledge about food and health liberation.

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