Palli: National food policies keep you from fitting in your jeans

On one issue, the first lady of the United States seems to have done far more than any politician. Through her “Let’s Move!” initiative, Michelle Obama is (often quite successfully, I hear) attempting to improve health among youth and prevent obesity.

One goal of the initiative is to get kids to exercise more. Studies suggest that exercise improves performance at school, in addition to its more apparent health benefits. The other major goal of Obama’s initiative is to improve children’s nutrition.

In a world where Congress, beholden to lobbyists, thinks pizza sauce should count as a serving of vegetables, her initiative provides parents and caregivers with critical nutritional information to help them make informed food choices.

The initiative has also encouraged schools to provide healthier lunches, a movement that the U.S. Department of Agriculture backed with a revision of the school meal food standards to improve the nutritional quality of meals.

House Republicans thought changing these standards would cost too much. Subsequently, to save money, Congress decided to undo many of the USDA’s changes, banning the department from disfavoring tomato paste (read: pizza sauce) above other vegetables. While it is true that potatoes and tomatoes (and maybe pizza) have a place in school lunches, they must be incorporated into meals properly; french fries and mozzarella sticks with tomato dipping sauce are unacceptable, unhealthy alternatives.

In this debate, the question no one seems to have thought to ask is: “Why does it cost so much more to eat healthy food?” The answer is farm subsidies. And therein lies the key to actually achieving the goals that the first lady has set forth.

From 1995 to 2010, the government spent $16.9 billion subsidizing corn starch, soybean oil, corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup. Compare that with less than $270 million for apples, the most heavily subsidized fruit or vegetable. That’s more than 60 times as much federal money for additives than for fresh apples.

This is what leads the average avocado to cost $1.11 last year while honey buns currently cost less than 60 cents each on Amazon.

Across the board, our farm subsidies often support the wrong types of agriculture. In 2011, our government spent $191,218,926 supporting tobacco growers. Should we really be subsidizing the production of cigarettes?

Reform of farm subsidies is critical and should be a bipartisan endeavor. Liberals get to push healthy initiatives and take away incentives for unhealthy habits, while conservatives get to pare down government involvement and leave affairs to the free market.

However, if cheap, unhealthy sources of food disappear, many who can only afford such food may no longer have food at all. To combat this, politicians need to be willing to shift a portion of the subsidies to fresh fruits and vegetables. Additionally, both parties need to agree to simply eliminate the ethanol fuel requirements that drive up food prices without helping the environment at all.

In this way, they could enact changes that would incentivize healthy foods and remove the perverse subsidization of some of our most unhealthy foods. In turn, such a policy change would complement and greatly enhance Obama’s initiative to improve health among American children.

As a whole, the tenets of Obama’s initiative are the prescription to many of our nation’s problems. An improvement in the health of children would not only help the government’s budget, but also contribute solutions to many other problems.

As mentioned before, exercise and health, in general, improve performance in school. Thus, improving children’s health should improve their performance in school and, hopefully, their employment prospects. This is an important part of any comprehensive move to improve American schools and works nicely with President Barack Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative, which seeks to spur innovation and reform in public schools.

Importantly, investing in education for healthier children will pay dividends in the future with lower Medicaid and Medicare costs, as well as a lower societal cost for health care. Just like in the 1800s, farm subsidies still play prominent roles in solutions to the biggest policy problems facing our nation: health care, education and budgeting.

Write Rohith at rohithpalli@gmail.com.