Will Michelle Obama's plan keep our kids from getting fat?

Today on the radio, I heard that President Obama has signed a new law that was a major project of the First Lady. What could this ground breaking legislation be about, and how will it impact our country? Well, it is a bill that set a Federal mandate for schools to remove vending machine that sell carbonated beverages and candy, and replace them with machines that will sell healthy alternatives.

That's not such a bad idea, right? It makes sense to keep all that junk food away from kids during school. This will keep them from experiencing sugar rushes and help them to focus in class. It will also teach some students the importance of making healthy food choices. There are plenty of advantages to this plan. Unfortunately, the bill declares that the purpose of this change is to reduce childhood obesity. I'm not against such a goal, but I don't think that this is going to have much impact on the problem.

Let's say your kid goes to school for around six hours each day. You probably feed them breakfast or they eat it at school. They have their lunch there, and then they come home for dinner. During the time that they are in classes, they might be able to find time to get to the machine one time. Is that one snack choice really going to impact their weight that much?

Now consider what happens at home for the other eighteen hours. Let's say eight of those are spent sleeping, but what happens during the rest of that time? There's no governmental agency set up to make sure your child gets all they need from the Food Pyramid, and no one is going to be checking to make sure those kids aren't getting junk food when you aren't with them.

Here's one more concern I have with this legislation: because the changing of the vending machines is Federally mandated, the Federal government has to foot the bill for the changes. According to the story I heard on the radio, this is expected to cost around four billion dollars. While it's not much compared to our current National Debt, it is still a lot of money especially when we are making choices about cutting the budget in so many different ways.

I'm not against the plan, but I'm concerned that it won't provide the results that the First Lady is expecting. I won't complain if I'm wrong on this one. That's my opinion on the matter. Feel free to leave me some feedback below.