Bernard Center

Published in The Hill, 10/12/11 http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/education/186979-silly-government-parenting-is-for-paren There has been ample debate lately about who is really committed to making our children healthier. The argument goes something like this: If food manufacturers were seriously concerned about children’s health, they would make parents’ jobs easier by getting rid of the cartoonish characters they’ve used since the 1950s […]

Moms and Dads Know Best: Understanding Childhood Obesity and Nutrition. Thursday, September 15, 2011 at THEARC 1901 Mississippi Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20020.

Letters to the Editor: the Washington Examiner While childhood obesity is a serious problem, food marketing is not the culprit. Parents are ultimately in control, and this week’s announcement that McDonald’s is offering a slimmed-down version of the Happy Meal is a great example of that fact. Apple dippers have been offered since 2004, and […]

Published in Townhall.com.  With nearly one in three American children overweight, it’s easy to question why anyone would oppose voluntary government guidelines that would severely restrict which foods can be marketed to children. What isn’t addressed by many is the theory behind these proposed guidelines, crafted by a gang of four government agencies called the […]

Letters to the Editor: The Washington Times am in total agreement with Beth Johnson’s Aug. 8 Commentary column, “Enough to make you lose your appetite.” Proposed restrictions on food marketing, designed by a government interagency working group, have little, if any, rationale considering the food they would end up targeting. Focusing entirely on sodium, potassium and […]

Published in the Huffington Post, 8/3/11 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-bernard/post_2273_b_917283.html Regarding Kristin Wartman’s August 1st column, “Food Industry Would Prefer to Regulate Itself,” Ms. Wartman casts the food and advertising industry as the callous, corporate villain for a problem that, in truth, is really about personal responsibility and access to healthy and affordable foods. First though, a little […]

Letters to the Editor: The New York Times To the Editor: Mark Bittman criticizes the food industry’s opposition to proposed interagency guidelines on marketing to children, and calls self-regulation “self-serving.” In reality, these guidelines are so overreaching that they triggered bipartisan opposition from the most divided Congress in recent history, with Republicans and Democrats sending […]

From change.org Kymberly Wimberley is a black teen mom who earned the highest GPA in her class in McGehee High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. But she wasn’t allowed to be valedictorian. The school’s administrators were afraid of a “big mess” if was Kymberly was recognized as the top of her class, according to a […]

African-American boys have a very high chance of being incarcerated or killed before they reach adulthood. In Baltimore, one of the country’s most poverty-stricken cities for inner-city residents, the Baraka School project was founded to break the cycle of violence through an innovative education program that literally removed young boys from low-performing public schools and […]