Michelle Obama Offers Bevy of Diet, Fitness Advice in Google Hangout

Michelle Obama Promotes Let's Move! Campaign in Google Hangout (The Guardian)

Michelle Obama's attempts to solve the problem of childhood obesity continued on Monday with a Google+ hangout hosted by Kelly Ripa.

Flotus has been having a fun time of it recently, dancing with Jimmy Fallon and handing out the best picture Academy Award to Argo. If you were to poll the two Obamas, I'd bet you'd find Michelle is far more into their second term than Barack.

But as the "Let's Move" campaign celebrates its third anniversary and the country adjusts to the early days of sequestration, Michelle Obama's campaign is somewhere between a rock and a hard place. Hunger is a major cause of obesity, and while the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP – formerly known as Food Stamps) has been exempt from sequestration budget cuts, other national food programs have been hard hit.

The Special Supplemental Program for Women Infants and Children (WIC), for example, will have to drop 600,000 families by the end of this year, according to the White House.

Michelle Obama is not stopping, however, she is just shifting her focus onto the "move" part of Let's Move. The program is expanding into the self-explanatory 'Let's Move! Active Schools' with a $50m subsidy from Nike.

"We have to get creative," she said via online video, "regardless of resources."

She advocated dancing indoors, when it's not safe to play outside. She told a group of third graders who video chatted in from Maine (all interactions took place by video chat) that they should play outside in the snow on snowy days.

"Go outside, roll in the snow, roll down some hills, have a snowball fight", she said.

"My family – we like to ski," she added as an afterthought.

When the conversation turned to food, and she was asked what her favorite snack was post-workout she played it safe. "We have apples all over the White House," she said. "We're just like anybody else."

Hunger became an issue about half way through the conversation. "I would ask students at every meal to take a bite or two of your fruits or your vegetables," she said, assuming that students get offered fruits and vegetables at every meal.