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By Matthew Rees

Food and Health Fact #193:

Michelle Obama's massive missed opportunity

Find my recent 90-minute interview with PLANTSTRONG founder Rip Esselstyn here I post on Twitter semi-regularly. Find me at @foodhealthfacts The full catalog of my previous posts, articles, and commentaries can be found on the Food and Health Facts website

Michelle Obama got hoodwinked. Or decided to cash in.

Those are the only possible explanations for her recent decision to partner with a private equity firm on the production and sale of ultra-processed beverages targeted at children.

It’s a disappointing coda to her efforts as First Lady to promote healthier dietary habits among America’s children. While those efforts ran into a buzzsaw of opposition, and were ultimately scaled back by Congress, they did help shine a light on the abominable state of child nutrition in the United States, which is home to the world’s highest measured child obesity rate (not all countries track the figure).

Now she’s pitching drinks to pre-teens that only look healthy when compared to products such as Coke and Pepsi – an extremely low bar to get over. These ultra-processed products, called PLEZi (prounced “plehz-ee”), flunk the nutrition standards Ms. Obama supported while First Lady. As a result, they can’t even be sold in schools. (The origin of the name, and its curious capitalization, go unexplained on PLEZi’s website.)

The PLEZi products contain juice concentrate from apples, watermelon, and blueberry (see full nutrition label below). In other words, kids will be getting the sugar from these fruits, but not the fiber, which is typically the healthiest portion. (The two grams of fiber in the drinks are added.)

Ms. Obama calls PLEZi a “worry-free alternative” to other beverages kids consume. Hardly. Consider that PLEZi contains an artificial sweetener, stevia leaf extract. Twelve days after PLEZi’s unveiling, the World Health Organization recommended against using stevia and other artificial sweeteners for weight control.

A reporter for Quartz hits on a fundamental issue with the product Ms. Obama is peddling: “PLEZi, no matter how well-intentioned, will just get small children accustomed to consuming sweets, and craving more.”

I cringed when seeing how the Obama team is cynically playing the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) card in its marketing. One of her advisers told Bloomberg that kids should have access to “better” products “not available in Whole Foods – in bodegas and corner stores and gas stations, in small towns all over the country.” Ugh.

While PLEZi has cobbled together a “kitchen cabinet” of credentialed advisors, critiques have been widespread. Marion Nestle, a leading nutrition expert and retired New York University professor, called PLEZi “ill advised” and a “dubious enterprise” selling “standard-industry, ultra-processed products not to be promoted to kids.” (American children already get 67 percent of their calories from ultraprocessed food and beverages.)

Even a former senior Obama Administration official in the Department of Agriculture told Bloomberg that the former First Lady “has been ill-served by advisers who convinced her to start by targeting 6- to 12-year-olds with a flashy, ultra-processed beverage that may not be any healthier than diet soda.”

Will PLEZi succeed? The beverage market is tough to penetrate and Quartz points out that “10 Capri Sun pouches cost $2 less than four PLEZi bottles at full retail price.”

But PLEZi has a powerful ally in Ms. Obama. She is a revered figure throughout much of the country and her memoir has sold more than 14 million copies. The company is also recruiting “ambassadors” to promote PLEZi via Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

Think about what Ms. Obama could have done. With her massive platform, and freed of the political constraints she faced while her husband was President, she could have advocated for the kind of radical changes in the American diet that are desperately needed.

How about launching a crusade focused on the health risks of sugar-sweetened beverages? And reinforcing the value of having children drink plain old water? Or pushing for public policy measures that would have a measurable and immediate impact, like blocking the purchase of sugar-sweetened beverages with SNAP (food stamp) benefits?

Instead, she’s concocted a product that has one redeeming feature: it’s a little less bad than most of what’s out there. It’s a massive missed opportunity.

But it’s also a useful reminder of just how difficult it's going to be to overcome America’s toxic food and beverage environment. When even a health-focused former First Lady buys into the system that leads to extraordinarily high rates of disease, disability, and premature death, the challenge of realizing meaningful progress becomes crystal clear.