Bernard Center

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 […]

As parents across the country prepare to send their children back to school, the all-important question, “What should I put in the lunchbox?” looms.  And the federal government just might have something to say about that. For example, you might not want to pack PB&J. Although it’s a perennial favorite of kids and parents, an […]

As Washington D.C. and the nation celebrate the debut of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial, I am reminded and humbled knowing that there is still much work left to be done in order to realize Dr. King’s dream. The new memorial shows Dr. King emerginging from a “Stone of Hope.” I see it as […]

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 […]

published in U.S.News & World Report Remember those commercials in which people would be blindfolded and asked to try a product and then say which one they thought tasted the best? Inevitably, the people in the commercials would taste the bargain item and say they liked it better than the fancy stuff, thus proving that […]