Anti-obesity plan is 4 years in

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON Wal-Mart is putting special labels on some store-brand products to help shoppers quickly spot healthier items.

Millions of schoolchildren are helping themselves to vegetables from salad bars in their lunchrooms, while kids' meals at Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants automatically come with a side of fruit or vegetables and a glass of low-fat milk.

The changes from the food industry are in response to the campaign against childhood obesity Michelle Obama began waging three years ago. More changes are in store.

About one-third of U.S. children are overweight or obese, which puts them at increased risk for any number of life-threatening illnesses, including diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.

While there is evidence of modest declines in childhood obesity rates in some parts of the country, the changes are largely because of steps taken before the first lady launched "Let's Move" in February 2010.

With the program entering its fourth year, Obama embarked Wednesday on a two-day promotional tour with stops in Mississippi, Illinois and Missouri. She has been talking up the program on daytime and late-night TV shows, on the radio and in public service announcements with Big Bird. She also plans discussions next week on Google and Twitter.

"We're starting to see some shifts in the trend lines and the data where we're starting to show some improvement," the first lady told SiriusXM host B. Smith in an interview broadcast Tuesday. "We've been spending a lot of time educating and re-educating families and kids on how to eat, what to eat, how much exercise to get and how to do it in a way that doesn't completely disrupt someone's life."

Conservatives accused Obama of going too far and dictating what people should -- and shouldn't -- eat after she played a major behind-the-scenes role in the passage in 2010 of a child nutrition law that required schools to make foods healthier. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee in 2008, once brought cookies to a school and called the first lady's efforts a "nanny state run amok."

Other leaders in the effort, such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have felt the backlash, too. Last fall, Bloomberg helped enact the nation's first rule barring restaurants, cafeterias and concession stands from selling soda and other high-calorie drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces.

Despite the criticism, broad public support exists for some of the changes the first lady and the mayor are advocating, according to a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.

More than eight in 10 of those surveyed, 84 percent, support requiring more physical activity in schools, and 83 percent favor government providing people with nutritional guidelines about diet and exercise. Seventy percent favor having restaurants put calorie counts on menus, and 75 percent consider being overweight and obesity a serious problem, according to the Nov. 21-Dec. 14 survey by telephone of 1,011 adults.

Food industry representatives say Obama has influenced their own efforts.

Mary Sophos of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the country's largest food companies, including General Mills and Kellogg's, said an industry effort to label food packages with nutritional content gained momentum after Obama attended one of their meetings in 2010.

"She's not trying to point fingers," Sophos said. "She's trying to get people to focus on solutions."

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