First Lady Michelle Obama served a healthy meal to kids today, attending the official “Kids’ State Dinner.” The event was held at the White House to promote the First Lady’s “Lets Move” anti-obesity initiative.

Here is the menu, which was assembled with winning recipes submitted by children for the contest. (via the pool report)

The menu:  Kale Chips from the New York winner were placed on each table ahead of the appetizer, which was Quinoa Black Bean and Corn Salad from the Arizona winner.  The entree was “Yummy Cabbage Sloppy Joes” from the Kansas winner, accompanied by Baked Zucchini Fries from the North Carolina winner. Dessert was two recipes:  A Strawberryana Smoothie from the Hawaii winner; and a “Summer Fruit Garland” from the South Dakota winner, which was chunks of fruit on a wooden skewer.

“All the kids are winners,” stressed Michelle Obama’s Deputy Communications Director Semonti Stephens to the children that attended the dinner.

First Lady serves ‘Cabbage Sloppy Joes’ and ‘Zucchini Fries’ to kids for state dinner | WashingtonExaminer.com

The CDC estimates obesity-related health care costs $147 billion per year.

I very much doubt America is going to do anything, as a matter of public health policy, that has any appreciable effect on obesity rates in the next couple of decades. Its not that its impossible for governments to hold down obesity; France, which had rapidly rising childhood obesity early this century, instituted an aggressive set of public-health interventions including school-based food and exercise shifts, nurse assessments of overweight kids, visits to families where overweight kids were identified, and so forth. Their childhood obesity rates stabilised at a fraction of Americas. The problem isnt that its not possible; rather, its that America is incapable of doing it.

Obesity: Another thing its too late to prevent | The Economist.