Michelle Obama: I failed to ‘feed my kids healthy,’ so other parents need help, too

First lady Michelle Obama said when it came to figuring out how to feed her children healthy foods, her Harvard and Princeton education didn’t help: She still struggled and oftentimes failed.

It was only when she arrived at the White House that she felt competent in the field of feeding her kids, she said during an interview with MSN.com.

“Before coming to the White House, I struggled, as a working parent with a traveling, busy husband, to figure out how to feed my kids healthy, and I didn’t get it right,” Mrs. Obama said, explaining how her feeding habits were so poor that a doctor once pulled her aside to discuss the family’s nutrition, Breitbart reported.

That’s when it dawned: “I thought to myself, if a Princeton- and Harvard-educated professional woman doesn’t know how to adequately feed her kids, then what are other parents going through who don’t have access to the information I have?”

Mrs. Obama explained why she felt it necessary to take on the job of telling school cafeterias around the nation what to feed students — her signature “Let’s Move” healthy eating initiative.

“It’s so important for our schools to make the hard calls for our kids, because parents are struggling enough at home,” she said, adding that without some concerted oversight, schools would likely feed students artificially sweetened cereals, chocolate milk, donuts, burgers and french fries, Breitbart reported.

She also said that parents and school administrators should stop worrying about what children want to eat, and instead pressure them to eat as adults do, choosing healthy fare at the expense of junk food because it’s the grown-up way of eating.

“It is our job as adults to make sure that our kids eat what they need, not what they want,” Mrs. Obama said, Breitbart reported. “I struggle with that in my own life, and I tell you, if I let my kids dictate what we have for dinner every day, it would be french fries, chips and candy, but we don’t run our households like that, and we can’t run our schools like that.”

Mrs. Obama also doubled down on the need for her cafeteria mandates, saying: “What we need to do is lend a hand to the schools that are struggling, not roll back the standards and say, ’Oh well. The kids don’t like it, so let them eat cake.’ We can’t afford to do that,” Breitbart reported.