First Lady Bullies Gold Medalist Gabby Douglas

Michelle  Obama, sitting next to Olympic gold medalist Gabby Douglas on the “The Tonight Show” last week, decided to bully the young girl about her diet. When queried by host Jay Leno, Douglas allowed that after she won her gold-medals in London she celebrated by “splurg[ing] on an Egg McMuffin at McDonald’s.”

The First Lady couldn’t stomach that. Smiling while she stuck the knife in, she said smoothly, “No Gabby, we don’t … don’t encourage him to eat that. I’m sure it was on a whole wheat muffin. You’re setting me back, Gabby.”

The First Lady wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to remind viewers of her commitment to end childhood obesity in America. But her bullying of Douglas goes farther than a simple chiding of a young teenager. It’s all part of a campaign with a sinister ulterior motive that is largely ignored.

When the Obama Administration avers that they don’t like the food that children are getting from home, and the schools can do a better job feeding them, who are the true beneficiaries of this state-run program? The answer, of course, is that the beneficiaries are the members of the Obama-loyal Service Employees International Union. 400,000 workers presently prepare and serve lunch to American schoolchildren. Tens of thousands of those workers are SEIU and the union wants to unionize all of them.

Not only was the First Lady out of line by embarrassing Douglas on national TV, but Mary Ann Johnson, a professor of Food and Nutrition at UGA, said Douglas was doing it right:

[The sandwich] was a good choice for an athlete who burns thousands of calories a day. She is also still growing as a young woman – she has a lot of high-calorie and high-protein needs.

There are some who question whether companies like McDonald’s that produce fast food should be allowed to sponsor the Olympics, since their product is “unhealthy.”  Connie Crawley, a registered dietician who additionally serves as senior public service associate and extension nutrition and health specialist at UGA, said, “Companies who serve low-nutrition foods sponsoring people who are trying to be healthy and fit … there’s a contradiction there. You do have to step back and [ask if] this is a good message to send to the American people, especially American young people.”

It is highly doubtful that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will let the nanny state bully them into refusing the kind of dough McDonald’s can offer; the fast food giant poured $100 million into the London Olympics.

But if the nanny state can’t bully the old men of the IOC, perhaps the First Lady can. When she’s on a mission, she doesn’t even flinch from bullying young girls.