Ex-Military Leaders Call Junk Food “National Security Threat”

In a move that will undoubtedly annoy those who feel the Obama administration has become smothering in its nanny state efforts to control people’s diets, ex-military leaders have been enlisted to declare war on junk food by declaring it a “national security threat.”

With one in four military age males in the United States deemed too fat to join the Army, retired generals and admirals are coming together under the banner of Mission: Readiness, a “nonpartisan national security organization” run by the Council for a Strong America, which recently received half a million dollars in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Council for a Strong America is primarily a lobbying group that has previously donated to the Obama campaign.

Mission: Readiness is set to hold a press conference on September 25th which will include speakers such as Richard B. Myers, General, US Air Force (Retired), Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, James M. Loy, Admiral, US Coast Guard (Retired), along with Former Commandant of US Coast Guard & Former Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Norman R. Seip, Lieutenant General, US Air Force (Retired).

“Calling childhood obesity a threat to national security, retired US Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2001 to 2005, will join other retired generals and admirals who are members of the national security organization Mission: Readiness in issuing a new report on improving the quality of food served in schools,” states the group’s press release.

There’s no doubt that eating a healthy diet and avoiding too much junk food is more important today then ever before, especially given the increasing amount of artificial additives in food that have been linked with obesity and other diseases.

      However, conservatives who think the government, along with Obama-supporting lobby groups, have no business telling people what to eat have become increasingly wary in recent years over the Obama administration’s efforts to dictate to people how they should manage their diets.

This propaganda campaign encouraging kids to eat healthy food (which in many cases isn’t even healthy) has infested the schooling system to the point where in places like North Carolina, elementary school officials are searching kids’ lunch boxes in order to ensure their parents have packed food which reaches nutritional standards.

As the Carolina Journal reported earlier this year, “A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because a state employee told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious.”

         This nanny-state mentality has been received badly in many quarters, not least because both Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are routinely pictured eating junk food as part of photo-ops while lecturing others about their culinary choices.

       Indeed, President Obama has been seen eating junk food so often that the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine launched a formal petition earlier this year to ask that Obama stop doing so in public.

This rage against the nanny state has perhaps most prominently manifested itself in New York, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg has moved to outlaw sugary drinks, forcing people to instead choose diet drinks which in fact contain more harmful toxins like aspartame and as a result are more damaging to people’s health.

Michelle Obama subsequently praised Bloomberg’s approach, applauding a measure which treats Americans like children in using the state to make decisions for them and in turn denigrating the free market.

      The FIrst Lady has even launched her own supermarket shopping guide, and yet the guide contains no information whatsoever on some of the real dangers posed by artificial sweeteners, MSG, genetically-modified organisms, meat preservatives and other toxins in food.

A new GMO food study released today reveals that genetically modified corn and trace levels of Monsanto’s Roundup chemical fertilizer “caused rats to develop horrifying tumors, widespread organ damage, and premature death.”

      The Obama administration has gone to great lengths to staff the FDA with former Monsanto executives, people like former Monsanto lobbyist Michael Taylor, who was responsible for allowing genetically modified organisms into the U.S. food supply without proper safety testing.