First lady Michelle Obama will be speaking out to remove barriers to breastfeeding, Politics Daily has learned, throwing the spotlight on nursing as a way to reduce childhood obesity.
This comes as the Obama administration in the past year has made several moves to encourage breastfeeding -- including a push for more flexible workplace rules and an Internal Revenue Service ruling on Thursday that breast pumps and other nursing supplies qualify for tax breaks.
Mrs. Obama -- who has spoken in public about nursing her youngest daughter, Sasha -- is going to tread carefully in what might be a sensitive area for some women -- and not use her bully pulpit to directly ask more women to breast feed.
Related Stories IRS Says Breastfeeding Expenses Are Tax Write-Offs. Finally. Capitol Hill Breastfeeding: Can 'Boob Cubes' Boost Bipartisanship? Breastfeeding Would Save $13 Billion, But at What Cost to Working Moms? "Breastfeeding is a very personal choice for every woman," Kristina Schake, Mrs. Obama's communications chief, told Politics Daily. "We are trying to make it easier for those who choose to do it."
Last week, Mrs. Obama touched on breastfeeding strategy at a lunch with 10 print reporters who cover her to mark the first anniversary of her "Let's Move" anti-childhood obesity campaign.
Looking ahead to what she will do in the second year of "Let's Move," Mrs. Obama said: "We also want to focus on the important touch points in a child's life. And what we're learning now is that early intervention is key. Breastfeeding. Kids who are breastfed longer have a lower tendency to be obese.
"We want to get into child-care centers, day-care centers, and start talking about how -- what kind of snacks they're getting there. We want to have those conversations at an earlier level. But those are just some of the things that you'll see."
Breastfeeding rates are low among African-American mothers compared to other racial and ethnic groups, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Mrs. Obama took note of this when she addressed the Congressional Black Caucus Conference on Sept. 10.
"And because it's important to prevent obesity early, we're also working to promote breastfeeding, especially in the black community -- where 40 percent of our babies never get breastfed at all, even in the first weeks of life, and we know that babies that are breastfed are less likely to be obese as children," she said.
Robin Schepper, executive director of "Let's Move," told Politics Daily, Mrs. Obama wants to increase breastfeeding rates but "is not telling women to breastfeed ... but wants to make it easier for moms by encouraging hospitals to change practices so after a baby is born, the baby is in the room with them."
Toward that goal, Mrs. Obama is going to push more hospitals to be certified as "Baby Friendly" by Baby Friendly USA, a non-governmental organization that works with the United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF, to increase breastfeeding opportunities. Only 3 percent of births occur at U.S. hospitals with the "Baby Friendly" designation."
In a "Let's Move" policy report issued last May, one of the problems mothers may have with breastfeeding starts in the hospital where after birth, "many babies are unnecessarily given formula and separated from their mothers, making it harder to start and practice breastfeeding."
Meanwhile, the Internal Revenue Service announced Thursday that the costs for "breast pumps and supplies that assist lactation are medical care" are now, under the IRS code eligible for tax breaks. That means that breastfeeding supplies could be treated as deductible medical expenses and/or be reimbursed under flexible spending plans.
In the child nutrition bill President Obama signed Dec. 13, the WIC program for low-income women -- the nickname for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children -- provides more breastfeeding counseling and supplies to eligible mothers.
The Affordable Care Act signed by Obama on March 13 -- the health care overhaul Republicans are trying to repeal -- requires certain employers to give nursing mothers break time and a place -- not a bathroom -- to express milk. The Labor Department is in charge of enforcement; the law covers a baby's first year.
Obama also ordered federal agencies to provide time and private space for nursing mothers and is encouraging bosses to give the same treatment to professional women who may not be covered by Labor Department rules.
White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett -- and chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls -- noted in a post at www.whitehouse.gov last December that workplace rules have a major impact on a woman's decision whether to nurse.
"While 75 percent of women initially breastfeed their baby, after six months only 43 percent are still breastfeeding at all," Jarrett wrote. "One of the most common reasons mothers cite for discontinuing breastfeeding is returning to work and not having break time or a private space to express milk. Many studies have shown these types of worksite supports help women continue to breastfeed after returning to work."
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09:08 PM
PFF
System Bot
blackrams Member
Posts: 28735 From: Hattiesburg, MS, USA Registered: Feb 2003
Geez, back on subject... time to get rid of our current tax system and all the stupid loop holes. Remove the income tax and go with a national sales tax! That way, if you don't want to buy formula, you are not taxed... same result, easier to enforce.
If you go to the US Government Printing Office ( www.gpo.gov ), you can order a complete set of Title 26 of the US Code of Federal Regulations (that's the part written by the IRS), all twenty volumes of it, at the bargain price of $974, shipping included. According to the US Government Printing Office, it's 13,458 pages in total. The full text of Title 26 of the United States Code (the part written by Congress--available for an additional $179) is a mere 3,387 printed pages, bringing the adjusted gross page count to 16,845. It changes with every tax season so whatever you did to pass muster LAST year probably won't apply THIS year. No one knows everything that's contained in it and you could spend the rest of the year just finding out what you missed.
You wouldn't drive a car that was cobbled together like the US tax code.
actually, what I see is a person who doesn't pick out the appropriate material to wear. Her dress/skirt should not be wrinkled. You would think that a multimillionaire would have someone to catch that.
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10:54 AM
avengador1 Member
Posts: 35467 From: Orlando, Florida Registered: Oct 2001
While her husband may have paid lip service to ending the abuse of science for “politics or ideology,” first lady Michelle Obama gave herself a super-sized waiver. Two of her showcase social engineering campaigns — tax preferences for breast-pumping working mothers and expanded nutrition labels — are based on distorting or dismissing the prevailing public health literature.
Just as the White House costumed Obamacare activists in white lab coats, the fashionable Mrs. O has cloaked her meddling anti-obesity crusade in medical fakery.
Over the past year, the first lady has marshaled a taxpayer-subsidized army of government lawyers, bureaucrats and consultants against the “national security threat” of childhood obesity. She has transformed the East Wing of the White House into Big Nanny’s new Central Command headquarters. The biggest threats to Mrs. Obama’s 70-point plan for national fitness: parental authority and sound science.
As part of her “Let’s Move!” anniversary celebration this week, Mrs. Obama rolled out a new breastfeeding initiative because “kids who are breastfed longer have a lower tendency to be obese.” She made her assertion to an invitation-only group of handpicked reporters who were barred from asking questions about her scientific conclusions. It’s not healthy to challenge Super Nanny, you see.
After the Internal Revenue Service carefully studied and rejected an advocacy push to treat nursing equipment as a tax-deductible medical expense last fall, the tax agency suddenly reversed itself in time for the first lady’s new public relations tour. The surgeon general has also issued a “Call to Action” to pressure private businesses to adopt more nursing-friendly environments to combat childhood obesity, all while denying that government is intruding on personal decisions. “No mother should be made to feel guilty if she cannot or chooses not to breastfeed,” Surgeon General Regina Benjamin asserted, while laying an unmistakable guilt trip on moms and moms-to-be.
So, what do studies on breastfeeding and babies’ weight actually say? Rebecca Goldin, Ph.D., research director of George Mason University’s Statistical Assessment Service, points out that the literature is inconclusive or demonstrates that the health advantages of bosom over bottle are short-lived:
“Indeed, there is little evidence that using formula causes obesity. There is a correlation between formula use and obesity among babies and children … though this correlation is not consistent in all studies. Some of these studies show a relationship in only some demographics and not others. Others show that the disadvantage of bottle-feeding and/or formula mostly goes away by the time a child is about 4 years old.
“The result is that we cannot discover whether breastfeeding is correlated with obesity because infant formula or bottle feeding leads to subsequent overeating or disposition to being overweight, or whether those parents who breastfeed are also more likely to offer their children green beans instead of French fries. Despite weak evidence, there is a lingering conviction that formula causes obesity among pediatricians and the press; if anything, the study about infants should make us reflect more carefully on this conclusion.”
Alas, such nuance from Mrs. Obama and her unquestioning media water-carriers is scarcer than tofu at Taco Bell.
Don’t get me wrong. As a proud mom who breastfed both of her babies, I’ve been and will always be a vocal defender of women who have devoted the time, dedication and selflessness it takes. But there are myriad individual reasons beyond Mrs. O’s expansive goal of battling the collective scourge of childhood obesity — intimate bonding and health benefits for the mom, not just the baby, for example — that lead women to nurse.
And we don’t need Big Brother or Big Mother to lead the Charge of the Big Bosom to persuade us of the personal benefits. Many private hospitals and companies have already adopted nursing-friendly environments. If it’s as good for their bottom lines as it is for babies’ bottoms, they don’t need a government mandate to do the right thing.
But as I’ve noted many times over the past year, Mrs. O’s real interest isn’t in nurturing nursing moms or slimming down kids’ waistlines. It’s in boosting government and public union payrolls, along with beefing up FCC and FTC regulators’ duties.
Take another East Wing pet project: leaning on private businesses to print expanded front-package nutrition labels warning consumers about salt, fat and sugar. The first lady’s anti-fat brigade assumes as an article of faith that her top-down designer food labels will encourage healthier eating habits. It’s a “no-brainer,” Mrs. Obama insists.
However, the latest study on this very subject — funded by no less than the left-wing Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — confirms other recent research contradicting the East Wing push. A team led by Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School’s Eric Finkelstein, published in the peer-reviewed American Journal for Preventive Medicine, found that mandatory menu-labeling in Seattle restaurants did not affect consumers’ calorie consumption. “Given the results of prior studies, we had expected the results to be small,” the researchers reported, “but we were surprised that we could not detect even the slightest hint of changes in purchasing behavior as a result of the legislation.”
Will the first lady and her food cops be chastened by the science that undermines their spin? Fat chance.
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09:13 PM
Formula88 Member
Posts: 53788 From: Raleigh NC Registered: Jan 2001
Michelle is gonna issue food coupons for breast milk ????????
THATS gonna cost about 7 trillion to the buddies to set up companies and enforcement agencies to make it work..........and of course the TSA will now be doing nipple tests to make sure nobody is smuggling unsafe/ illeagal milk........
Wow, an unflattering picture of her butt. Is this supposed to have some meaning, and if so, dont you think you could be brave enough to say what it is? Trust me, if there was one first lady in the last 44 I would rather be hooked up with it would be her. Have you seen the cellulite infested ancient butts of our other previous first ladies? By comparison, that one is almost perfect.
No meaning to it, just looks a little embarrassing for the prez, seems his wife could be a little more careful with her dress code. After all she is the first lady and should dress appropriately and look the part. She spends so much of our tax money on her personal aids,whoever the aid is that dresses her, should be fired. That's not the first unflattering picture of her floating around.
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07:10 AM
82-T/A [At Work] Member
Posts: 18244 From: Florida USA Registered: Aug 2002
Wow, an unflattering picture of her butt. Is this supposed to have some meaning, and if so, dont you think you could be brave enough to say what it is? Trust me, if there was one first lady in the last 44 I would rather be hooked up with it would be her. Have you seen the cellulite infested ancient butts of our other previous first ladies? By comparison, that one is almost perfect.
Being married to a women who is very much the fashion queen, and has managed dozens of retail chains including Express, Urban Outfitters, Wet Seal, Forever 21, etc...
One word...
"thong"
But, I guess it's just one of those things... how do you tell the first lady what she's supposed to wear underneath? Women (big or small) should be wearing thongs when they wear tight-fitting pants. Otherwise, you get what is called "quad-ass." If you didn't see the underwear lines, there really wouldn't be anything wrong with that picture.
