Michelle Obama spoke Tuesday at one of the biggest political events of Latinos, the National Council For La Raza Conference, in New Orleans as a heated battle for immigration reform stirred in Congress. Obama, however, skirted around the topic and centralized her focus on the issue she's been tackling during her time as First Lady: childhood obesity.
"Forty percent of Hispanic children are overweight and 50 percent are on track to develop diabetes," she said. "While food might be love, the truth is we are loving ourselves and our kids to death. We need to step up, we need to start questioning the behaviors and beliefs that are making our kids sick."
A 2010 study from the Office of Minority Health found that Hispanics in the U.S. were 1.2 percent more likely to become obese diabetes than non-Hispanic whites. The first lady reminded the audience of her "Let's Move" campaign, which encourages parents to participate in regular exercise with their children, the Huffington Post reported. She asked the Hispanic community to take the power they have as consumers as their demographic grows to make big companies accountable for unhealthy products advertised to children. While the issue of immigration fell to the wayside, Obama is no stranger to defending the president on his policies, which has become a hot button issue for him during his second term.
"There is nothing more critical than keeping families together and that is why Barack has been fighting so hard for comprehensive immigration reform," she said in a 2012 interview with the Spanish-language network Univision. "For the sheer fact that we cannot continue to let families be broken apart. That is at the heart of the success of any community -- thriving families being able to stay together."
Immigration, of course, was still a big topic at the NCLR's conference, with political representatives hosting panels on the subject. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., hosted a panel Monday where he said that despite the delay in addressing the immigration bill, representatives would be open to the public on the issue during town halls set to take place throughout August. Congress is expected to take on immigration reform head-on in September, CBS News reported.
"I am very confident about our chances for immigration reform, even if the road ahead looks difficult sometimes," Gutierrez said. "We have unity among Democrats like I have never seen before, and there are dozens and dozens of Republicans who will vote with us to resolve this issue in a bipartisan manner."
© 2024 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
