Achieving all this won't be easy. This isn't something we can fix with a bill in Congress or an executive order from the president. I've spoken with many experts about this issue, and not a single one has said that the solution to childhood obesity is to have the government tell people what to do.

Instead, it's about what all of us can do to help our kids lead active, healthy lives: parents making healthier choices for their families; mayors and governors doing their part to build healthier cities and states; and the private sector doing its part as well—from food manufacturers offering healthier options to retailers understanding that what's good for kids and families can be good for businesses too.

Of course we all should be doing what we can to help with this, but I have to disagree that this isn’t something the government can fix. I know she has to tread carefully here, any suggestion from her that the government might dare interfere in private lives will get her slapped with outraged accusations of socialism. But the thing is the government can be blamed for a good deal of the problem, so they are going to have to be the ones to fix it. When our government subsidizes the crops used in junk food (corn, cheap beef…) and not healthy fruits and vegetables, they create the condition that forces poor families to buy food that is bad for them since they cannot afford the healthy stuff. Do that long enough and our body gets used to certain tastes, it builds up a craving for sugar, sodium, and fat that is hard to undo. If this country is serious about ending this health crisis it will take a government order to drastically change the way our country subsidizes food. This isn’t the government telling people what to do, but creating a environment in which they are able to make good choices.

The government also has the power to stand up to the agri-businesses and corporations that control food in our country. It's been done before for the sake of our children's health. As public schools were entering into more and more contracts with vending companies (often granting exclusive rights to these companies) in order to make ends meets, the government had to step in to protect the health of children. Many of these contracts granted exclusive rights to sell beverages at the school to a soft-drink company, essentially prohibiting the sale of milk. The government had to pass a law exempting milk from these contracts so as to make it available to kids in schools. Since then, further laws have been passed prohibiting the sale or advertizing of “foods of minimal nutritional value” in schools altogether. The government protected our kids from the greed of corporations in these instances, why can they not do so again?

Take the meat industry's laws prohibiting anyone from criticizing meat and influencing people not to eat it. Just mentioning the chemicals, fillers, and diseases present in meat can be grounds for being sued off your ass by the meat industry. They are so protected by these food libel laws that the law states even if they lose they don’t have to pay your court fees. Even Oprah wasn’t rich enough to stand up to them. After questioning meat on her show and being sued, she eventually settled out of court and was bullied into silence on this issue. Laws like this that protect the very people harming us should not be allowed in this country. It is going to take the government to stand up to injustices like this that threaten our health. And it will take an advocate like Michelle Obama leading the charge.

There are bigger issues here than just encouraging everyone to make lifestyle changes. Of course ending the health crisis will require us all to make sacrifices for the greater good. But it will also take the government choosing to care more for the health of the nation than it does the interests of corporations. I don’t care if it “sounds” socialist or big brothery – if throwing around those names is all it takes to opt out of really helping people then we truly are beyond hope. Childhood obesity affects us all – and our food system needs major overhaul if we are ever going to see the crisis reversed. And no matter how uncomfortable it might be, that is going to require government intervention.

Like I said, I don't watch Oprah and have no desire to defend her. Nor do I care necessarily for the particulars of these issues per se. What bugs me are the attitudes and assumptions expressed in the article. In my mind what is even scarier than say encouraging people to use positive thinking is convincing them that conventional medicine is the god they must worship or else be accused of the direst forms of heresy (i.e. crazy talk). There is this strange message conveyed that modern science is an objective take on the world and that if we simply trust in it's science we can all be saved. And while I love modern medicine and owe my life to it a couple times over, can I kindly say that that is a bunch of bs.

First, modern medicine is not objective nor does it hold all the answers. The average doctor only has a very limited knowledge base when it comes to even what is known about health. Their skill and training vary and they are not the ones out there doing research and discovering new cures. I've personally had enough doctors either misdiagnose me or decide that since they don't understand my symptoms they will do nothing to still hold any illusion that doctors truly know best about these things. While they know a lot, they are relying on their limited education and whatever drug programs have been pimped to them. They are obligated to sell the cures from the companies that have wined and dined them, not necessarily seek out what cure might work best for each patient. Similarly those cures were created by researchers funded by certain companies – with certain demands and expectations. This is not objective science seeking to heal the world, but businesses playing a marketing game with our health. They have bottom lines to protect – and when that bottom line is about money not health, that claim of objective science shatters. This god we are encouraged to blindly trust has ulterior motives.

Secondly, this unfounded trust in conventional medicine assumes that who we are can be reduced to biomedical issues. If we get sick then we are given some (patented) chemical to fight that sickness. The more we get sick, the more chemicals they sell. Who we are as whole people gets ignored. Pursuing lifestyles that help us be healthy, whole people messes with that system. We are trained to simply want to pop a pill to biomedically remove a problem, and that alternative remedies, preventative measures, or even concerns about those pills are scoffed at. If it doesn't support the conventional system, it is alternative, and therefore wacky "crazy talk." But the stories are more than obvious that people who take care of themselves – care for their body and "soul" – are happier and generally healthier. There is something to the power of positive thinking – be that if the form of prayer, or meditation, or whatever. There is something to watching what we eat, exercising regularly, detoxing ourselves, and feeling good about who we are that helps us truly live our best life. We are not just organisms waiting to get sick so that the sickness can be banished by the pill the priest dispenses at her holy alter. Life is a lot messier, organic, and holistic than that.

And I think that's what Oprah is on to. Sure, I say question her suggestions, look into how they really affect people. But I have a hard time accepting a critique that dismisses her holistic lifestyle tips simply because they do not walk lockstep with conventional medicine. I use conventional medicine, and I actually know very little about so-called "alternative medicine," but I question the supremacy of conventional medicine and it's cult-like following in our society. It is a fantastic tool that I am grateful for, but I don't buy the propaganda that it holds all the answers. So I appreciate the voices that propose alternatives and remind us that we are more than cells to be experimented upon. We don't have all the answers, and I doubt we ever will, but the picture is a lot bigger than we have been led to believe.