Our current First Lady made a terrible error when she ripped into her daughters over their weight.
No mother should do this to her children in public, least of all the First Lady. Thinking nothing of the girls themselves, and the damage it does to them psychologically to have their weight discussed in a public forum, it sets a bad precedent for future First Families. Gone are the days of the Clintons and Bushes, who vociferously protected the privacy of their daughters. Chelsea Clinton was off-limits. The Bush twins were protected through their adulthoods, at which time they chose if and when they wanted to be part of political debate. First Children are off-limits for a reason: growing up in the White House is hard enough, without people making the awkwardness of the maturation process the fodder of national headlines.
So, it’s disgusting that Michelle Obama believes talking about how fat her daughters are is appropriate behavior for a First Lady — or, frankly, ANY MOTHER.
We’re stunned she’s being called out on this, because none of her other bad behavior draws any criticism from the fawning press.
Her crazy Princeton thesis, so poorly written it reads like parody, in which she casts herself as a perpetual victim who hates everything about America, is wholly ignored.
Her MANY years sitting in Jeremiah Wright’s hate-fueled “church”, clapping, cheering, and agreeing with every RAAACIST! diatribe against America are never mentioned.
Of course, it’s conveniently forgotten that this woman first discovered she was proud of America, for the first time in her adult life, just as her husband was poised to win the Wisconsin primary in 2008. Before that, she had no pride in her country. Zilch. What’s pride, when all you know is contempt?
So, perhaps this is just a fluke, where the First Lady so slaps decency in the face that the media feels compelled to slap her wrist a little. This White House uses two innocents as props when needed, regardless of the impact it can have on them. It’s good the MSM has woken up long enough to say this should not stand.
Tomorrow, it will be back to deluding the public into believing Michelle is “the greatest fashion icon who has ever lived”, and the other nonsense the media tries selling.
But, we continue to ask why the First Lady’s crusade against obesity doesn’t start with her own weight, or the weight of her self-proclaimed “chit-chat buddy”, Oprah.
If Michelle Obama wants to talk smack about anyone’s carriage, why not look into her own mirror, and talk about the junk in her own trunk. Did you see the dress she wore to the State of the Union? It looked like a hoop skirt. Before she smacks her daughters in public for their weight, the First Lady needs to own her own weight issues. Before this woman lectures anyone else on extra pounds, she needs to stop being the second coming of a Sir Mix-a-lot video.
You want to attack someone, Michelle? Try Oprah. Your chit-chat buddy. She’s larger than twelve of the First Daughters. AND, she’s a grown woman who’s repeatedly made her weight an issue, so it’s more than fair game.
What does Michelle like to say about people not being able to keep their own houses in order? If she can’t control her own obesity and BMI, and doesn’t hold any sway whatsoever over Oprah, then she shouldn’t be attacking her own daughters in public.
February 5, 2010 at 11:39 am
“I like big butts, and I cannot lie.”
lol
February 5, 2010 at 12:04 pm
First thing on my mind when I read the Sir Mix-a-lot part.
February 5, 2010 at 11:43 am
I’m glad she’s catching heck! Most eating disorders in teen females are started by remarks from parents. A demanding mother and a distant father are the perfect setting for the behavior. And that is the world these little girls live in.
Sheesh! the for a smart woman, she ain’t real bright.
February 5, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Lol, President and Mrs. Slow Learner.
I hope the girls don’t develop eating disorders or other problems brought on by their parents wacko ideas about what people “should” be.
February 5, 2010 at 12:20 pm
I have two friends who are now in their 40′s who have a history of eating disorders. One of them fortunately didn’t pass the behavior on to her daughter, but the other (who now has V-tach from the damage) noted that her 7 year old is now stepping on the scales every morning.
It’s very sad.
February 5, 2010 at 1:34 pm
7 years old? sheesh!
I was in gymnastics and it was about 8 years old that I had a well-developed muscular butt and legs … my family would call me “porkchop” and my other sister who was tall, lanky, and uncordinated “bones”. I was lucky I didn’t develop an eating disorder, but have always been body conscious since those remarks!
February 6, 2010 at 3:33 am
I was a figure skater for 11 years and really muscular. We did bootcamp style training especially during summer sessions and I’d have to do 100 regular pushups in a row. So I was pretty muscular. All it took was my best guy friend who I’d like forever and my coach telling me I ate like a grown man to set me down the horrible path of anorexia. I suffered from 13 until 19 when my best friend died and I decided to get better because she had wanted me to. At the worse I was 5’6″ and 85 lbs and looked like a little kid. Eww. Now I’m like 100 or so and definitely look better. I can’t stand seeing anyone setting a path like that for a kid. It was jokes that got to me and weren’t even meant seriously, but jokes have consequences especially if you tend to be a perfectionist. M.O. needs to look in the mirror before she says anything about her children who are still growing and will probably go through different awkward stages anyways. Unless she wants skinny daughters who end up with heart failure or seizures or any of the other serious consequences that comes from restricting your diet. :( Not to mention at least with anorexia it ends up being a lifelong inner battle that you have to be able to shut out everyday and hope not to relapse.
February 5, 2010 at 1:41 pm
EBBurns: I was thinking the same thing. How many children began an eating disorder by someone’s remarks. In this case, it’s their mom, no less. Usually, when the person making the remark is someone they trust, it is even more worst. How sad that she’s willing to throw them under the bus along with everyone else that suits them politically. Others are right – if you’re going to bring someone up as an example, make sure it’s yourself.
February 5, 2010 at 3:33 pm
“A demanding mother and a distant father are the perfect setting for the behavior.”
Mine was borne of a distant/demanding/domineering father and a doting/wonderful mother. Mom’s hands were clean in all this.
Michelle Obama’s comments were dangerous and just inappropriate. She is a disaster.
February 5, 2010 at 11:49 am
As a daughter whose mother is and always have been OBSESSED about weight (we are now way past grown ups) I know what that is like. Weight has always been an issue to my mother (who always had a wonderful figure and at 87 even now looks good!) and she constantly worries about it morning noon and night even though as a child I was very skinny but still she brought up weight related issues. As far as I have seen, the Obama girls are not fat. My niece is 16 and is tall and very nice looking and is now obsessing about her weight even though she plays volleyball 3-4 times a week to maintain her figure. That is a very poor culture to raise our children. They should be more worried about how they treat people, helping others and the world at large rather than if they are a few pounds overweight. Michelle is projecting her unhappy childhood issues onto her chidren and making them crazy for no reason. That is poor parenting.
February 5, 2010 at 12:00 pm
I clearly remember the time someone called me chubby when I was ten years old. I even recall the dress I had on.
That’s how humiliating it was, and she wasn’t even my mother. Then she tried to make it better by saying it was only baby fat.
Four years later: My baby fat disappeared and that lady’s daughter ended up with anorexia. The last time I saw the kid she was 14 years old and her wrists were so thin it hurt me to look at them.
It’s essential to teach children the value of good exercise and nutrition habits, but somehow shaming them in front of the world doesn’t seem to be the correct approach.
February 5, 2010 at 1:50 pm
I remember the public weigh ins at my elementary school. They were some of the most humiliating experiences of my life, and I wasn’t even chubby!
It helped that I knew the teachers wasn’t my mommy, and I couldn’t expect her to be, and also that no one outside the school would know. I can’t imagine how hurtful it must be to be – what? – eleven and have your mother bringing up your supposed weight problems in the national media. The fact that Michelle is one of the most pear shaped women I’ve ever seen is just a little bonus. It would be equally bad if she was thin.
February 5, 2010 at 11:50 am
Not too long ago, TV showed the O family getting off their plane and I thought that the oldest daughter was quite tall and skinny like her dad. Has that quickly changed???
February 5, 2010 at 6:08 pm
What I read was that the doctor had said that there were some things “out of balance”. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it was their weight, per se. It could have meant they were borderline diabetic, ie. their sugar/insulin balances were off. That would require a proper diet to keep it from tipping over into full-blown diabetes. If that is the case, then Meechelle would be wiser to mention it so that other parents can correct their childrens’ diets so that they don’t end up diabetic. More and more children these days are getting what is known as adult-onset diabetes at the age they would usually get juvenile diabetes. There is a big difference between the two, I am told. And if that was the case with her daughters, she should have said so, not just called them fat. She’s the fat one in that family.
Oh, and it’s normal for some kids to gain a bit of weight just before a growth spurt, the weight is then properly distributed over the larger frame after the growth spurt is finished. Other kids just get skinny when in a growth spurt and gain the needed weight afterwards. But for a mother to publicly shame her children like that is just plain cruel.
February 6, 2010 at 6:51 pm
That is nice to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she was talking about fat (in danger of obese, not even just fat) not diabetes.
Her statement was,
“I didn’t see the changes. And that’s also part of the problem, or part of the challenge. It’s often hard to see changes in your own kids when you’re living with them day in and day out,” she added. “But we often simply don’t realize that those kids are our kids, and our kids could be in danger of becoming obese. We always think that only happens to someone else’s kid — and I was in that position.”
February 5, 2010 at 11:52 am
If MO wants to talk about obesity, let her talk about her own fat hips, wide rump, and thunder thighs!
February 5, 2010 at 11:56 am
The “oinkers” love to point out others shortcomings, even though this one is apparently so mystical that only Her Crassness can see. Poor innocent kids born to the perpetual limelight of their delusional parents. Mirror mirror on my glorious wall who is the least insightful of all?
February 5, 2010 at 12:00 pm
She’s violating one of the most important aspects of her relationship with her daughters and that is maintaining their privacy.
Being a tween by definition is an awkward stage for both genders. Inherent to that developmental age is a feeling of being neither fish nor fowl. No longer a child, not yet an adult, heck not even a full fledged ‘teen’. A netherworld.
Body changes are legion and so are the reactions to dealing wtih them. Being different on any level can be problematic socially.
Yes, Michelle can pick childhood obesity as her cause, I care not. What I care about as a mother is that she’s using her children in this crusade and that is absolutely, positively WRONG.
Every kid at school now knows that her ped thought that she was ‘fat’. Not only that, EVERY KID IN THE COUNTRY KNOWS. And now that this has been picked up as controversial, potentially every kid in the freaking world.
I don’t know about you, but I would have been mortified at 12 to have that happen. I don’t care how much self esteem and internal strength that you’ve instilled in your kids before that, it’s going to have an impact. Either the kid is going to internalize it, and you have a set up for an eating disorder. Or the kid blows it off and goes insensitive to the remarks of others, not good for future intimate relationships.
Hyperbolic? Not when you’re talking about that particular age group. This is exactly when all of those problems start solidifying.
What is the buffer against this age? Parents who understand and protect the personhood of their kids. Who more so than the kid of the POTUS, under a constant international media spotlight, would need that buffer more?
Sorry Michelle but as a mother, you’ve completely stepped in it. Apologize to your kid and shut up about them. If you want to work this as a national problem, head on but just leave your daughters out of it.
February 5, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Absolutely! Her remark about her daughter’s weight is now known world-wide. This at a time the tween years — when eating disorders begin for girls when their hormones are just developing. It’s disgusting that Michelle did this to her own daughter! Once again the Obama’s had to make it about them and really did step in it.
February 6, 2010 at 1:56 am
I’ve never understood why they didn’t use the dog. He wouldn’t care and there are loads of issues you could use a dog as the “voice” to promote. Including proper nutrition.
February 5, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Boyz, Glenn Beck just did a whole segment (moments ago) on THIS.
In usual Beck fashion (he calls himself a ‘fatty, fat, fat’) but thru humor, Glenn, Pat and Stu delved into the lunacy of BMI (like a middle aged, PMSING woman going after Snyders BBQ chips–Im just saying).
This “statement” of Me!Chelle has been percolating all week (she said it earlier in the week–Today Show devotional?) And several of us Buzzerz had a little commentary (diss session) THAT day.
So cyber high fives all around to the Boyz and Buzzerz; and cyber raspberries (with chocolate sauce and real creme!) tossed Mrs. Utopia’s way. Discussing (my take using!) your children for a ’cause’ is so wrong.
And, just because I like to pile on (like cheese and bacon on fries) Michelle Malkin had a great piece (again, linked here on HB) about the “Overweight” Child WH Directive and its benefit to the SEIU. The SEIU wants to unionize ‘lunch ladies’ coast to coast. Yes. Follow the money…back to the most frequent WH visitor eveh…Andy Stern…and his plans to have the people who scoop peas and pudding be considered ‘paraprofessionals’ that ‘need fair wages and benefits’ and of course, pay union dues to the SEIU.
February 5, 2010 at 1:42 pm
At one time long ago, lunch ladies actually cooked the food and developed nutritious lunch menus. My Catholic school was known for its yummy lunches and homemade bread. Now its just prefab stuff that they slop onto lunch trays. If something good came out of this unionization that schools got back to cooking and providing nutritious food … THAT would be something to get behind.
February 5, 2010 at 12:04 pm
…eugh, they brought up BMI. I hate that thing. One of the girls at my station is changing her MOS, and she’s being told to lose 30 frikking pounds. She’s 160 for God’s sake. She has love handles, and that’s IT.
Why are they telling her this? BMI. Apparently her ratios are ‘bad.’ Gee. I wonder why. Might it be because she’s…not white? Female? Has an athletic build?
Hate hate hate the BMI.
February 5, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Still, the BMI is way better than the older IBW which was 100# for the first five feet and 5# for each inch over for females.
IOW< a 65" female should weigh 125# with a top allowable range of 137#.
Males is 106# for the first 5 feet and 6 pounds for every inch over. So, 65" males should weigh 136# with max allowable at 149#
BMI gives a lot lot LOT more latitude with a 65" person hitting BMI of 30 at 180#, 30 being the obese marker.
I like it WAY better.
February 5, 2010 at 1:02 pm
Is it better? Yes.
Is it the best we have? No.
Is it the cheapest alternative to the best that is still ‘close’ enough to be considered ‘statistically accurate’? Yes.
Does it leave significant portions of the population twisting in the wind? Yes.
February 5, 2010 at 1:15 pm
I don’t disagree— I just remember the nightmare days when we’d get orders “Miss X is 25% above IBW, start Reduction program” and we’d get this lanky, athletic 62″, 140# female.
Now, she has to get to about 160# to flag.
So, yes, the BMI isn’t the be all-end all. If you do BF%, BP, waist circumference and look at labs— you have the real and whole picture.
February 5, 2010 at 12:06 pm
SHAME ON HER.
Obviously Me-chelle is projecting her internal issues about her own self-image on Sasha. Everyone can see that Malia is skinny, and not the daughter to which Mama refers. Poor Sasha’s self-esteem will now be further damaged by her mother’s crass insensitivity and public violation of her adolescent daughter’s trust. I am sorry that these girls have this boob for a parent.
February 5, 2010 at 12:11 pm
I’m curious what doctor told her this. Our pediatrician does not do BMI. He gives us the weight and height on a sliding scale of how it stacks up against 100% of all kids. So they would be in say the 50 percentile for height and the 40 percentile for weight or something.
I have children this age and they all look roughly the same weight as the First Daughters. Whoever is telling them they are “fat” or even need to “watch it” is insane. These are growing HEALTHY girls.
The obsession with weight in this country is ludicrous!
February 5, 2010 at 12:16 pm
That’s what I was thinking..if those girls are fat then we are all in trouble..
February 5, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Good point. Our doctor does the same…and they plot your kids actual numbers on an ‘averaged’ scale.
But, in the age of HIPPA those numbers…and everything in their medical file is CONFIDENTIAL!!!
February 5, 2010 at 12:18 pm
We’re a schizophrenic country when it comes to weight. Our ‘ideals’ are smaller than ever, with size 2 in Hollywood being the average size of a starlet,
YET< the average size of a normal female is 12-16. Look at portraits from 60, 100, 200 years ago. Not much has changed in the average size.
Yet, we have extreme's as our ideal body sizes with major issues with morbid obesity on the other.
And sadly, those who are 'normal' are miserable because of that size 2 standard that only 6% of the population can attain naturally.
The world has gone mad.
February 5, 2010 at 1:24 pm
They’ve adjusted the sizes. I’m currently wearing a size 8 which would have been a size 10 some 20years ago. Which means stars are currently wearing size 4.
I recently looked through a book of Pin up models in swimsuits of the 50′s and early 60′s. Think Bunny Yeager. Full figured, nicely rounded ladies. Hourglass. But accordingly the sizes of these women were size 12. Based on patterns by McCall, Vogue etc… during that time.
But yeah, your right… a regular, healthy woman has got curves, assests baby!, a BMI of 24% or so… Not Concentration Camp or Heroin “Chic”. Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russel, Betty Grable,Sara Ramirez, and Salma Hayak…real women, real figures.
February 5, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Even more so— ALL women were beautiful. Audrey Hepburn to Mae West were all glamorous and admired.
The ‘I’ve got to loose weight to be beautiful!’ BS is a new in the last 60ish years phenomenon. Before then, the range was very broad and all were accepted.
Now, size 2 is it.
February 5, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Speaking as a formerly very thin person,(was that way naturally) still not heavy as I’m entering my senior years but just glad to finally have a few curves even if I would like to rearrange some of them, I can tell you it was no picnic growing up “skinny”. I remember playing dodge ball in grade school and being the kid no one could hit. A teacher asked a boy why he couldn’t hit me with the ball and his response was when “she turns sideways we can’t see her.”
I truly think it is insane how we have become obsessed with weight, at least for the female sex. Michelle Obama is doing her daughters a grave disservice. This is just not a “privacy
issue”. It’s a parenting issue. The Obamas have two beautiful daughters and from what I’ve seen they seem like they are typical kids for their ages. Michelle, if she talks at all about her daughters in public should portray their “positives” or at least be neutral. I can’t imagine what it would be like to grow up the White House. I look at the wonderful young lady that Chelsea Clinton has become, and I think Bill and Hillary did something right by keeping her out of the “public eye”.
February 5, 2010 at 6:18 pm
ycats, the report I read said that the doctor said “some things were out of balance”. That could mean anything, including a pre-diabetic condition that needs a diet to keep it from tipping over into diabetes. And you don’t have to be fat to become diabetic. It’s a question of insulin/sugar ratio, not fat and calories. So a healthy diet for a pre-diabetic condition doesn’t mean the person is fat, just that they have too much sugar in their system and need to cut back on foods that have sugar in them, or produce sugars when digested. I was appalled to read Meeshelle’s comments on her daughters. That was just about the meanest thing she has ever done, including dissing Hillary(for which I will never forgive her!!).
February 5, 2010 at 12:13 pm
FMOTUS
Fat Mouth of the United States
February 5, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Hillbuzz,yesterday you were asking what is it Iran up to on Feb.11,i went to their websides,get this yes they have new satellite technology,what they are trying to do interfere our communications and stop all their tv and radios that people are getting through satellite here in USA.
February 5, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Brillant commentary. Well, when you are an egotistical twin of your husband, what do you expect to continue his bashing ways. No internal introspective, just negative behavior. I feel sorry for their children. Really I do.
Their grandma practices voodoo and their mother and father represent what voodoo really is.
February 6, 2010 at 11:00 am
I think that Michelle has just shown her sociopathic tendencies. By this, I mean that a sociopath is unable to empathise with another person. She has used her daughter as a tool, a thing to make a point with.
February 5, 2010 at 12:49 pm
[...] Web of Green: Manufacturing a Public Scare and Friday Free-For-All: Carlyle Edition Hillbuzz: AT LAST. First Lady receives some of the criticism she deserves, that’s long overdue. and Question: Should you vote for someone just because she’s a woman? and Are PAC ads running [...]
February 5, 2010 at 12:49 pm
[...] Web of Green: Manufacturing a Public Scare and Friday Free-For-All: Carlyle Edition Hillbuzz: AT LAST. First Lady receives some of the criticism she deserves, that’s long overdue. and Question: Should you vote for someone just because she’s a woman? and Are PAC ads running [...]
February 5, 2010 at 12:53 pm
[...] Web of Green: Manufacturing a Public Scare and Friday Free-For-All: Carlyle Edition Hillbuzz: AT LAST. First Lady receives some of the criticism she deserves, that’s long overdue. and Question: Should you vote for someone just because she’s a woman? and Are PAC ads running [...]
February 5, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Why is it that obama and mEchelle along with most everyone else in the W.H. do not speak through their brain? This group is the most stupid I have ever seen. Biden fits right in.
February 5, 2010 at 1:04 pm
A couple things.
1. Oddly enough, I read what Michelle said, and I found it even handed. She is fighting childhood obesity but never said her daughters were obese. In fact she said she thought her girls were perfect. I think that was the point she was trying to get across. And as strange as it may be, I don’t think what she said was terribly wrong. However~~
2. Being First Lady changes everything.
3. Even if what she said was true she should have made the story a 3rd person story.
4. I am concerned that FLOTUS has now opened the door for the Palin children to be criticized when they become the First Family.
5. I think the fawning press isn’t fawning anymore and this comment can be openly criticized without the critciz-or seeming like a terrible person. They are after all, sticking up for a child.
February 6, 2010 at 11:05 am
Point 4.
Maxine, were you been asleep during the last Presidential elections? The Palin kids were targeted from the word go!
Your letter looks like troll missive.
February 5, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Hillbuzz:
Remember, Sarah Palin is always accused of using her kids. The nitpicking and double standards are so glaring.
What about the “faux” scandal of Palin buying “Going Rogue” for her donors? And how long did the media cover up the Edwards affair? Ridicilous.
Can you imagine the reaction if an R said what Harry Reid and Rahm Emanuel said recently?
Can you imagine the reaction if anyone at Fox said what Chris Matthews said recently?
Can you imagine the reaction if Fox did what NBC just did at their cafeteria (as pointed out by Hillbuzz)?
February 5, 2010 at 1:16 pm
*Sigh* I had the hypercritical mom who was always making little comments about my weight– and I was fit! I mean, 5’9″ 130lbs with a runners’ physique. and I heard about it when I gained 5 pounds. That kind of behavior is just one symptom of a toxic parent. I don’t speak to my mom these days. I feel guilty about that, but she does nothing but tear me down. I finally realized I can’t let her do that to my kids too.
February 5, 2010 at 1:17 pm
I wish the Obamas would leave their kids alone. Didn’t they recently talk about how one of the kids got a bad grade in school? And then she studied and got a better grade? How mortifying for the child to have this in the national news. Now they’re saying their kids are getting fat. These are the most ignorant parents. I’ve always disliked the Obamas but I’ve always had a soft spot for their kids. Those poor kids, what a drag.
February 5, 2010 at 1:27 pm
The Obamas need to stop using their children.
Here’s another thing:
I recall an interview in which MO was discussing her daughters and their grandmom babysitting them. MO stated something like: “There’s always that extra piece of pie.”
I took that to mean that Granny wasn’t as strict as MEEEEchelle regarding the girls’ meals.
Hello! How many extra pieces of pie has MEEEchelle eaten? Hmmmmm? It takes a few extra pieces of pie to pack a caboose and hips like that!
First Hypocrite of the United States!
February 5, 2010 at 1:52 pm
I just saw that SOTU dress — it seems too tight. Actually, all of Michelle’s clothes seem too tight somewhere — she is usually pulling at the seams in pants, and at the shoulders. It’s not like she can’t get her clothes tailored, or have someone fit her properly.
I really really don’t understand WHY this woman’s style is to be emulated when she always looks as if she’s about to bust out of her seams. & don’t get me started on her camel-toe in jeans!
February 5, 2010 at 8:59 pm
My mother in law writes the text books for Trade schools which teach people how to make a clothing patterns. She said she would NEVER want to dress Michelle. Her body type is the worst to dress. She has a short high waist, and a long torso, with an extended behind. Unless Michelle gets clothes precisely tailored to her shape they will pinch, pull and bind. Her shape is so radically “off market” she will never find anything truly flattering off the rack. Even if it is the biggest designer in the biz.
Just sayin’ what some one in the know said about her particular shape.
The only dresses I ever saw her in that I liked were the dresses the buzz boys pointed out. They were both purple, both were flattering.
February 6, 2010 at 8:39 am
If the FLOTUS would pink-slip some of those extra members of her entourage, stop yapping over faddish designers in her efforts to appear hip, and turn to an experienced dressmaker… it would be time and money well spend for her.
February 5, 2010 at 9:01 pm
I’ve never seen the camel toe, but now I don’t have to the mental image is seared into my brain….ewww!!!!!
puke
February 5, 2010 at 1:55 pm
[...] Web of Green: Manufacturing a Public Scare and Friday Free-For-All: Carlyle Edition Hillbuzz: AT LAST. First Lady receives some of the criticism she deserves, that’s long overdue. and Question: Should you vote for someone just because she’s a woman? and Are PAC ads running [...]
February 5, 2010 at 2:36 pm
The Obamas have made a constant issue of their children’s privacy (which their kids wholely deserve), except when they decided to scrap the privacy and trot out the kids for their political gain.
Now, what MO has done is exposed them without them having any say-so on a national stage on a topic most chidren are highly sensitive to. It was a horrible breach of trust, in my view. That’s at the very least. I hope neither of her daughter’s develops body and/or food issues because of this.
Either way, MO exhibited very poor judgement. I feel bad for her kids.
I also find it amazing that a couple who are highly educated would have been so clueless until a visit with the doctor, as to not realize that apples and grapes are good foods to include in one’s diet, that limited soft drinks is a good idea, etc. What universe were they living in, for goodness sake?
February 5, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Not exactly OT, but has the First Wookie looked in a mirror lately and observed what’s following her around?!?! I swear her a$$ weighs more than either of her girls.
February 5, 2010 at 6:11 pm
OK… let’s not go there, cause the borderline of crass just whizzed by. Overall weight is one thing; where you carry weight and how you’re naturally shaped are another. The latter’s not in anyone’s control. Many African-American women are built to carry weight there, some women really do have a naturally wider pelvis, some women who’ve given birth really do show the skeletal effects more than others, and so on. Let’s give her a break. (I’m tellin’ ya, even as a 98-pound, skin-and-bones teenage anorexic, my hips were significantly out of proportion, and you would’ve called me a widea$$…)
February 5, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Ditto—
I’m short and very pear shaped (good ole peasant stock birthing hips) and no matter my weight, and it’s been below 100…. I’ve been called a broad ass.
It’s genetic and yeah, weight is one thing, body type is another.
February 6, 2010 at 2:15 am
Ditto again. My pastor once remarked that I had the widest butt he’d ever seen, which was sooo humiliating.
Don’t get me started on him. I only mentioned that because WHO says these things does matter, which MEchelle “Being Black At Princeton Was So HAAARRRRDD” should know.
My butt IS wide. So are my shoulders. When I’m thinnish, I can’t get blouses that fit that aren’t pulling at the arm pits. And the only time I ever GOT what society and I considered really attractively thin, my old pediatrician sought me out at a wedding reception to tell me I was dangerously thin.
It finally occurred to me that it didn’t matter a toot what anyone but my husband thought of my body. And I only wanted or needed ONE husband. So I just learned to eat and exercise so I felt as well as possible and waited until I met Mr. Right.
He’s Italian. He LIKES my body. Reubens would’ve too. :o)
February 6, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Yup.
Either from a genetic predisposition, or motherhood, a lot of us out here have wider behinds.
I never had a behind to begin with, but pregnancy does a number on you. The hormone relaxin softens the cartilege in your pelvis so that eventually you can give birth and can cause hip spread that doesn’t return to it’s previous state afterwards.
So you can end up getting a wide hip situation and it’s not genetic. It also cannot be dieted or exercised off.
Michelle, after two kids, has earned her hips. She hasn’t, however, earned the rich food that you just can’t regularly indulge in (like from parties every three days). That and exercise are the only two things that you can control. But you’re stuck with the results of genetics and motherhood.
February 5, 2010 at 2:54 pm
“…camel-toe in jeans!” LOL
in jeans, in dress slacks, and Oprah wears them like that, too! So “classy.”
Did you ever think that the First “Lady” would
embarrass the nation by wearing clothes that bind the nether regions?
February 5, 2010 at 3:23 pm
[...] Web of Green: Manufacturing a Public Scare and Friday Free-For-All: Carlyle Edition Hillbuzz: AT LAST. First Lady receives some of the criticism she deserves, that’s long overdue. and Question: Should you vote for someone just because she’s a woman? and Are PAC ads running [...]
February 5, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Well . . . if the Obama children are overweight (and I am not saying they are), whose fault is that? Is Michelle not their mother?
Michelle Obama has two daughters. She is their mother. She’s no one else’s mother. So she doesn’t need to mother the rest of us out of our favorite foods.
February 5, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Instead of weight, shouldn’t we be speaking about health?? Children shouldn’t be on diets to lose specific amounts of weight. Instead, doctors, schools, etc. should be emphsizing healthy habits and healthy living… encouraging parents to sign up for kids to play sports or do activities, packing healthy lunches, and cooking healthy meals as a family. If a family does this, it doesn’t matter what the kids weigh. Not everyone is meant to be a stick thin supermodel
February 5, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Well of course them girls are fat…there starting to grow boobs…. Traveling every few weeks and waking some where strange bed…fun for adults… but kids react to this movement good or bad. Their also …1/4 white. Is that her reason to put the youngins’ down in public? I wonder? Michell’s clothes seem to be too tight too short or way off the mark…What’s up with that? Is she the only slim chick in that household?
Michelle grows a healthy garden don’t ya know. Cut the fat!!!! Helps here new cause!
If her family is “fat” we all must also admit that “we” American’s are FAT!
Never let a crisis go by without grabin for some cheese! I wish I had the pool they have to slim in……would be nice.
February 5, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Poor girls! Getting comfortable in your constantly changing, maturing teenage body is hard enough for girls, especially ones in the international spotlight. Those girls really don’t need any extra exposure or pressure.
Comments like those can’t typically cause eating disorders on their own. The comments absolutely have to be planted in the right kind of psychological soil– often an emotionally distant father (even if physically present and seemingly involved) and tendencies toward perfectionism/achievement/people pleasing/control, whatever the source. With that prepared soil, though, even one comment can be enough to just trip the switch.
I remember one comment as vividly as if it were yesterday: My dad actually gave my back a quick rub (I can count memories of him actually touching me on one hand) and made a comment about how it was muscular with no fat. That one comment along with one moment of realization that I had grown hips were enough to trip the switch for me. Three months later I was just 98 pounds on a 5′ 9″ frame.
February 5, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Here’s something to remember. . .MichelleO originally wanted to make Americorps HER project. But then, it got screwed up, with the firing of I.G. Walpin. I think the White House is still stone-walling on Michelle’s role in protecting Kevin Johnson (mayor of Sacramento).
So, she moves onto something safer, which is almost a billion of our Stimulus Dollars, given to CDC, to fight obesity. CDC will do all the work, and Michelle will take the credit.
February 5, 2010 at 6:50 pm
I read somewhere that SEIU is going to be involved in this campaign, supposedly trying to unionize more school food service employees.
February 5, 2010 at 7:05 pm
I thought it was bad when Obama used his daughter not studying enough and watching TV and got a 73 on a science test. But for a Mom to tell the world her young daughtwer were overweight, is just awful.
February 6, 2010 at 12:47 am
I don’t care what the subject matter is–doesn’t this “political mother” have a clue about establishing boundaries that allow her young children to retain privacy over their lives? Jacqueline Kennedy would have fired and cement-booted any HIRELING who might have spoken publicly about Caroline or John-John. Her dignity and bearing at all times in public and as a mother constituted a steel wall between those children and the public. But of course, the First Woman is an entirely different piece of cake: for her, the children are just one more tool to use for her own purposes. Clueless and disgusting. Again, the difference in the two: Mrs. Kennedy said at one point during the nonstop “recording” of her life, something along these lines: “I will live my life, not justhave it recorded.” That was the thought anyway, I know I don’t have the words right. But there ya go: the difference between that lovely First Lady and The First Woman. As the Boyz have said, Class vs. Crass.
Heaven help these little girls when they hit puberty: imagine the mileage Mr. and Mrs. Crass White House Squatters will get out of those stories.
February 6, 2010 at 12:51 am
I just ate a handful of M & M’s, just because I wanted to. I suppose those heady experiences are soon numbered. I tried to warn people before this piece o’ work was selected about the damage that could be done to our country through regulatory agencies and executive orders….and then he’s had control of Congress (at least ’til now) as well. It matters who people are…and these people are dangerous. The underpinnings/foundations of our Republic cannot protect us against suicidal elections.
February 6, 2010 at 1:51 am
I was so sick of feeling bad about my body that I refused to have television in our home and my daughters weren’t allowed to play with Barbie-style dolls.
I bought them umpteen trolls and we had loads of fun doing their hair and making clothes and a house and furniture for them. One year, the girls created our entire manger scene with trolls. It was adorable.
I was also scrupulously honest with them. One asked me once if she’d gained weight and I said yes, I thought maybe she had put on a few pounds.
Well, she had. She was working at an ice cream store, eating the mistakes and her pants were too tight.
But her friend actually gasped and said, “I can’t believe your mother said that to you.”
We both said, “Why not?”
“Parents always say you’re beautiful no matter what.”
I said, “Not here. I tell my girls the truth. That way, when I say something nice, they know I mean it.”
When they got their figures and began experimenting with revealing fashions, I didn’t tell them (as my mother had) that they looked like sluts. I said, “It is so not fair to the boys for you to go to school looking that hot. How are they gonna LEARN anything with you sitting there making their hormones rage?”
They’d laugh and go change.
My girls are in the 20s now. They are well adjusted, happy women who have married (or soon to be) the same strong, kind, intelligent, loving men their dad is.
So :oP“` to the people who thought I was awful for banning Barbie and television. It was worth it.
February 6, 2010 at 10:14 am
So when Sasha and Malia go to the OB-GYN for the first time, will she use that as an opportunity to talk about pap smears?
Seriously – unless there’s a serious condition inflicting one of my children, their medical information stays between three people: me, my husband, and our pediatrician.
Maybe we should start a collection for the inevitable therapy bills these poor girls are going to have.
February 6, 2010 at 10:35 am
Is this what we’d ALL have to look forward to with government run health care? With the government in charge, you never know when the FLOTUS might call YOU out as a public health example! lol
February 6, 2010 at 11:25 am
Is it just me? Every time someone writes FLOTUS I think flatus.
February 6, 2010 at 11:46 am
Chris, no it’s not just you…particularly in this instance.
I prefer the ‘First Wookie’. LOL!
BTW, I’m a fellow Ontarian! :]
February 6, 2010 at 11:37 am
Michelle Obama is crass. How disgusting and disappointing.
February 6, 2010 at 11:38 am
IMHO, Me-me-mechelle is very insecure herself! (Read her thesis, if you can stand it.)
That’s why she’s always just trying too hard. The WH garden is an example.
LOOK AT ME…LOOK AT ME…I’m just such a wonderful person, planting a GARDEN!
And her constant over-the-top (exorbitant) attempts at fashion.
LOOK AT ME…LOOK AT ME… do I look nice? Yet? A little bit?
And with this comment about her daughters. I doubt that it crossed her mind for even a second that this would be hurtful to them.
I think again it’s all about her. LOOK AT ME…LOOK AT ME!
My girls got fat, but I’m GOING TO FIX THAT!
Just looking at her mother (who lives with them) I bet Me-me-mechelle’s OWN childhood was no picnic.