Pizza And Polis

If Jared Polis (D-CO) doesn't tread more lightly on this healthy eating kick, a herd of angry elephants led by Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) is going to charge down the aisle and sit on him one day. There he goes again, expressing concern about children's health. Doesn't Polis understand that the Republicans control Congress now and the priority is corporate health, not children's health? If Big Business-- read big campaign donors and their lobbyists-- want to force-feed garbage food to public school kids... well, it's only temporary anyway-- until the GOP can abolish public school altogether.

What angers Sensenbrenner and other obese slobs in Congress isn't that Polis and those damn health hippies in states like Colorado and California want to give children a chance to escape from the obesity epidemic that is making America into one giant Jim Sensenbrenner; it's that if he doesn't shut up, he's going to dry up all the campaign contributions from Agribusiness. And that's not chump change. It's what makes the Beltway go round and round. Since 1989 Agribusiness has spent $386,243,081 bribing federal lawmakers. This doesn't count the tens of millions they spend bribing state legislators who are even more corrupt that the federal ones. The contributions favor the GOP better than two to one-- and almost all of the money they give to Democrats, goes to Blue Dogs and other corrupt conservatives inside the Democratic Caucus. Sensenbrenner has gobbled up $123,196 so far. This year alone Agribusiness has kicked in $33,960,930, 66.9% to Republicans and almost all the rest to conservative Democrats-- primarily Blue Dogs and their enablers-- who vote with the Republicans.


Sensenbrenner led the battle against Michelle Obama's organic garden and against her talking to school kids about exercise and healthy food choices. But it isn't just Sensenbrenner. Almost all Republicans hate choice. So Polis' new legislation-- the SLICE (School Lunch Improvements for Children's Education) Act is probably doomed to a quick death. How dare he try to claim frozen pizza isn't a vegetable! What do people in Boulder know about pizza! Just look at Polis and look at Sensenbrenner and you tell me who knows about pizza!

Now, keep in mind, Jared Polis isn't against pizza; he just thinks it shouldn't count as a vegetable in school lunches. "Pizza has a place in school meals but equating it with broccoli, carrots and celery seriously undermines this nation’s efforts to support children’s health," he said Monday. Republicans say the tomato sauce makes it a vegetable and Polis blames the frozen food industry lobbyists. "Big food companies have their priorities," Polis continued, "which include selling cheap, unhealthy foods at high profits. But parents and schools have their priorities: making sure our kids eat right."

Were Congress to pass SLICE-- it won't, probably not even Democrats retake Congress (not with all the corporate whores Steve Israel and Joe Crowley are recruiting-- would empower the USDA to implement "healthful" standards for the pizza served in public school cafeterias which would include "sodium reduction targets" and "whole grain requirements." Polis' bill "would close the loophole that allows a pizza without vegetables to be counted as a serving of vegetables in federally subsidized lunches eaten by almost 32 million U.S. school children."

Two years ago, Congress passed a child nutrition law that called on schools to improve the nutritional quality of lunches they serve but then lobbyists for frozen pizza sellers like ConAgra Foods Inc. and Schwan Food Co. started hanging around the Capitol and the next thing you know pizza was classified as a vegetable. Lobbyists for french fry makers like the one that supplies McDonald’s Corp. also succeeded in preventing limits on how many starchy vegetables, like potatoes, are served.
There is an epidemic of childhood obesity across the nation and around the world. Experts estimate one in five children between the ages of 6 and 17 are overweight in the United States.

“We all eat pizza. I eat pizza. I enjoy pizza,” Polis said, calling a slice of pie “a good snack from time to time” that “can be part of a healthy diet” so long as all of its carbohydrates, calories and saturated fat are balanced out by exercise and overall healthy eating. While “pizza can be a lot of things to a lot of people,” he stressed that one thing it certainly is not is a vegetable.

Suzanne Merkelson tackled the legislative agendas behind the American obesity crisis at Republic Reports yesterday.

Nearly half of all Americans will be obese by 2030, researchers reported at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Weight of the Nation conference in Washington earlier this month. 42 percent of us are projected to be obese, placing a huge strain on our already compromised health care system. Brian Fung at The Atlantic points out that the healthcare costs of obesity-- $550 billion over the next two decades-- is more than the U.S. Department of Defense asked for in its fiscal year 2013 budget.

There are a lot of reasons-- chemical, psychological, environmental-- for why people are obese. But explaining societal obesity means looking at what the food system is providing for us to eat-- and how government policies might promote certain foods over others.

“In the political arena, one side is winning the war on child obesity,” a new Reuters report on the food lobby begins. “The side with the fattest wallets.”

...The food and beverage industry has definitely outsmarted the federal government when it comes to targeting children: Efforts to tax soda have been crushed; 16 states have been persuaded to prohibit lawsuits over fatty foods; Congress has even declared pizza a vegetable, for Pete’s sake. The Boston Globe notes that young people fighting obesity have little chance against the food and beverage industry who “have waged an unprecedented war against even voluntary guidelines.” Even supposed Obama allies, like former White House communications director Anita Dunn, have been hired by the industry to lobby against obesity initiatives.

...As the 2012 farm bill heads from the Senate to the House of Representatives, it’s important to keep in mind that this isn’t just a farm bill-- it’s a food bill, helping to dictate what kinds of food people can afford. Not everyone on the House Agriculture Committee sees it that way: last month, Republicans on the committee voted to cut $33 billion from food stamps while keeping farm subsidies intact. With recent high crop prices and a record of $136.3 billion in farm exports in 2011, big farmers growing corn and soy don’t really need the help (even the powerful Iowa Farm Bureau agrees). Instead, the farm bill should work on making healthy foods, like fresh fruits and vegetables, available at lower prices. Because if there’s one thing that the country can’t afford, it’s having a population that’s half obese.

The Blue America candidates all admire Jared Polis' serious attempts to so something constructive about the obesity epidemic. One of our candidates, Dr. Lee Rogers, was the national spokesperson for the American Diabetes Association. He's keenly aware of how dangerous corporate-driven American food policies are. This morning he told us that "We have an epidemic of obesity and diabetes in America and one of the fastest growing segments of that population is school-aged children. This threatens the financial security of the US because we will spend $2.5 trillion on diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease in the next 10 years. It threatens our national security because the top reason to fail physical readiness tests in the military is being overweight. We need to get serious about the health and wellness of our children and realize the connection to our economy and security." If you'd like to help replace corrupt California curmudgeon Buck McKeon-- a steadfast ally of Sensenbrenner's and the whole anti-health GOP mob-- you can do it here at the Blue America ActBlue page.