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Michelle Obama Targets ‘Food Deserts’ Next

by Tanya Thomas on Jul 24 2011 8:31 PM

Michelle Obama  Targets ‘Food Deserts’ Next
Michelle Obama takes her battle against child obesity to "food deserts" - places in the USA where fresh produce and affordable, healthy choices are nonexistent.
She has collaborated with retailers, including Wal-Mart, Walgreen’s and Supervalu, to open locations and sell fresh food to underserved neighbourhoods.

The First lady defines a food desert as an area where healthy foods are tough to come by and often too expensive for residents.

The fight against food deserts is one of the linchpins in her Let’s Move campaign, launched last year to try to bring down the staggering rate of childhood obesity, which affects one in five children in the United States.

Obama said that bringing healthy food options would give parents what they really want: choice.

"If a parent wants to pack a piece of fruit in a child’s lunch, if a parent wants to add some lettuce for a salad at dinner, they shouldn’t have to take three city buses or pay some expensive taxi to go to another community to make that possible," the New York Daily News quoted Michelle as saying in an event in the East Room at the White House on July 20.

Source-ANI


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