Today the media has offended me....

I get random questions about what I think about our first black President in my small community. I realize that there are not a lot of black people in this area....Yes, I'm making this specifically about black people because there are many people of color in this area but that color is usually derived from some background of Hispanic or Latino. I understand that people want some perspective from someone of a different background...so I don't mind the questions. I don't even mind national budget questions even though I think it will take a miracle to fix the mess we're in now.

So here is how the media has offended me today....I'm not one of those easily offended people but today it may seem like I am. Michelle Obama, who I believe is an amazing first lady (mainly because the things she cares about and tries to change are important issues that need to be addressed) is under fire today for discussing her daughters weight when addressing the nations child obesity rate has tripled. I was sure this statistic was coming out since we used to have talk shows like Maury Povich with toddlers who weigh more than some 4th graders. That's insane. Michelle Obama is a concerned mother trying to relate to regular people in the US. A lot of mothers take their children to the doctor and hear the same information from a physician. They have the same thought process as the first lady "My kids are perfect. How are they becoming overweight?" Being overweight the majority of my life I was not really supported in any efforts to slim down. I was harassed to loose weight as a child for my diabetes. As a teenager, I took on working out to get in shape for myself but the effort put forth was never good enough. I never slimmed down to a size 10. Today I look back at how I felt then and wished I felt that good today. My stomach wasn't perfectly flat but it was closer than it is now. Now that I'm almost 30 I work out to try to live longer, to be apart of my family longer.

Ultimately I think if Michelle Obama has a great parenting relationship with her girls and can talk to them about how they feel and how they're handling all of the publicity, they'll be fine. No one really chastised the political group that used images of the Sasha and Malia in their campaign to get better school lunches for hungry children. But now it's not ok for the First Lady to relate to mothers everywhere about their children and their weight problems. I'm offended. As a woman who is dying to be a mother, I would think that the first lady talks to her daughters about body issues (weight being one of them) because I would want to talk to my daughter about body issues. I would want to make sure that my children understood how to work towards change and provide them with all of the support in the world. I commend Michelle Obama for trying to be a First Lady who helps people and changes their lives. With the many lists the First Lady has been named to, I love how it doesn't phase her. She is still just being herself, a married woman supporting her husband, doing her thing, being a mother and loving her children. Mrs. Obama, You Are Inspiring!

Is it okay to talk about your daughters’ weight if it’s for the national good?

by Mira Jacob, Shine staff,

Two weeks after announcing the unnerving news that childhood obesity has tripled over the last 30 years, and unveiling her own initiative to combat it, Michelle Obama has offended critics by discussing her own “wake-up” moment—when the family pediatrician told her that daughters Sasha and Malia were becoming overweight.

“In my eyes I thought my children were perfect,” Mrs. Obama said at the January launch of her initiative. “I didn’t see the changes.”

While innocuous to some, this comment has set off both valid and not-so-valid criticism in the blogosphere—everything from calling the first lady well-intentioned-but-misguided to hinting that she could be tipping off her daughters’ future eating disorders. Even with one-third of American children classified as overweight or obese, several critics are far more concerned with Michelle Obama’s anecdotal use of her daughters.

Jeanne Sager, a writer for Strollerderby who admits to reading “everything through eating-disorder glasses” says she feels worried for the girls because their mother has “taken an extremely touchy subject out into the open.”

She goes on to say, “On the brink of teenagehood, Malia Obama is at an especially precarious position. With a naturally changing body, the idea that she has to face the world debating her fat puts her at higher risk for an eating disorder.”

In a post that delineates the difference between what is accepted in “the eating disorder world” vs. "the outside world," Laura Collins Lyster-Mensh of the Huffington Post writes, “I am sucker-punched to read that our First Family put their daughters on a 'diet' because they feared 'obesity' and no doubt will be lauded for it…This is not an eating disorder issue, however, and it should not be only us who know this and speak out about it. These are medical, social, and ultimately self-defeating errors in thinking that do harm to all children and all of us. I am very sad today.”

Jezebel brings up the fair point (via Fox News Channel contributor Michelle Malkin) that perhaps in “revealing that her children have had weight issues too” Michelle Obama is “exposing her children to scrutiny at an early age.” Judging from the over-scrutinized lives of other White House daughters—from Amy Carter to Chelsea Clinton to the Bush twins—that’s one fate the Obamas might want to avoid whenever possible.

Mrs. Obama also sat down for a revealing interview on “The Today Show” (see clip below), where she talked about keeping Sasha and Malia grounded, finding time for dinner, and handling the pressures of being a style icon.