lady, who has made nutrition part of her campaign to help the young get
healthy.
Speaking at Harriet Tubman Elementary School in
as both parties backed the measure designed to provide better school
meals to more students and to regulate those meals to make them more
healthful.
“This act is about doing what is right for children,” the president said in televised remarks.
First lady
her husband for pushing the bill through Congress. “I want to thank him
for working very hard,” she said as the president interrupted to
jokingly note that if he hadn’t, he “would have been sleeping on the
couch.”
“I won’t go into that,” the first lady replied.
Called the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, the bill reauthorizes the federal nutrition program, a
measure that expands free school meals for the needy. For the first
time, it sets nutritional standards for all food, whether in cafeterias
or in school vending machines, and is designed to help fight obesity
among children, which has led to an increase in disease, such as
diabetes.
The bill also increases the spending per meal by about
the president noted. He said the money for funding the increase came
from cuts in the food stamp program but that he was committed to
working with Congress to find a way to restore those funds.
The bill passed the Senate in August and was approved by the House earlier this month.
“We can agree that in the wealthiest nation on
Earth, all children should have the basic nutrition they need to learn
and grow,” she said. “Nothing is more important than the health and
well-being of our children. Nothing.”
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