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PCRM’s Controversial School Lunch Campaign
The newest controversy in school lunch centers around a new ad campaign by the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine. The Washington DC nonprofit has been advocating vegetarian school lunch options and is now drawing fire — from bloggers, activists and the White House too — for targeting the Obama daughters in a new set of posters.
Displayed in Washington’s Union Station, the posters show a young girl with a thought bubble that says, “President Obama’s daughters get healthy school lunches. Why don’t I?” The day after the posters went up, the White House asked the organization to take down the posters, saying it was not appropriate to mention the president’s children. PCRM declined, and the posters will remain up until the end of the month.
I’ve blogged about what Sasha and Malia Obama eat for lunch and how their private school runs the meal program. The cafeteria fare at Sidwell Friends is worlds away from what you would find in a typical public school, and I do think that’s an issue worth exploring. But PCRM’s ad campaign is out of line. Not only is it inappropriate to target the Obama daughters in a high-profile ad campaign, but it’s especially inappropriate considering that President Obama has been supportive of measures that would improve school lunch. Moreover, the posters take an important issue and use it to raise emotion rather than raise questions. Yes, I think the difference between Sidwell’s cafeteria fare and public school cafeteria fare is an issue we need to address. But it’s an issue that we need to address at a deep level. Why can Sidwell serve such excellent food? What are the differences in program structure that allow the school to serve vegetarian options? What can we learn from private school meal programs that might be transferable to the public school model?
All of these questions are worthy of study, and PCRM could have used its campaign to prompt some real thought. Unfortunately, it looks like the drama caused by these posters might actually discourage people from exploring these issues — and from supporting the organization’s fight for healthy food.
August 18th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Another reason this ad is inappropriate is because of the answer to the question PCRM raises. Why don’t you get lunches like the Obama girls? Because their lunches are prepaid with the school’s tuition fees. This isn’t how lunch at public schools works.
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