First Lady Michelle Obama will be featured on the cover of a special issue of Children’s Health magazine. The newsstand only issue will be available September 15. According to the New York Times the First Lady and the President will also be featured in upcoming issues of Prevention, Men’s Health, and Women’s Health magazines. Rodale, the magazine’s publishers, is hoping that the (Michelle) Obama factor will help them sell many of the 750,000 copies that are being printed of Children’s Health.
While the Men’s Health and Women’s Health magazines features are reported to focus on and endorse the President’s health care plan, the Children’s Health feature focuses more on the First Family’s healthy eating habits.
The New York Times reports:
“Mr. Moore (Peter Moore, editor of Men’s Health) interviewed her (Michelle Obama) in Women’s Health about her view on health care reform, her family’s experiences dealing with illness and keeping down calories in the White House kitchen. Mrs. Obama did not land on the cover of Women’s Health, though. The cover has a small photograph of her, while the actress Christina Applegate is the main subject. David Zinczenko, editor in chief of Men’s Health and editorial director of Women’s Health and Children’s Health, said that was because Rodale wanted to parcel out the wealth of Obama coverage among four of the company’s magazines, and Women’s Health had a readership that was younger than Mrs. Obama, so it made sense to hold her from that cover.
In Prevention, there isn’t a word about the health care debate. Instead Liz Vaccariello, the editor in chief, poses questions about workout habits, eating habits, sleep habits and Mrs. Obama’s feelings about aging and skin care. Readers “care deeply about the health care plan,” Ms. Vaccariello said in an e-mail message, “but they don’t come to Prevention to read about policy or politics.”
Posted by Aminah Hanan
4 Comments, Comment or Ping
Dee
“In Prevention, there isn’t a word about the health care debate. Instead Liz Vaccariello, the editor in chief, poses questions about workout habits, eating habits, sleep habits….”
Thank you for this, Aminah. I’m looking forward to buying this magazine, and reading the First Lady’s answers. This is the type of thing – with a focus on what can be done to foster good health, vitality and a sense of well-being – that I especially enjoy seeing her involved in.
Sep 4th, 2009
admin
Awesome! I think this may be her legacy. Health and fitness when so many of us are ignoring our mind bodies and souls.
Sep 4th, 2009
Aminah Hanan
I can definitely see health and fitness being a part of the First Lady’s legacy. With her garden being the first since Eleanor Roosevelt’s and the possibilty of real healthcare reform in the US with a focus on preventative medicine, she is without a doubt set to make even more herstory.
Sep 5th, 2009
Sarah
I agree that health is important, but to manipulate readers by just making it appear as though Michelle’s only concern is your health, despite that in reality it is about a very political, poorly-written, reform that will burden us with increased taxes even on the poor and middle class($3,800 extra anually) and exterminate the availability of competition from employers or other private insurers by adding excise taxes on them, is ridiculous. Not to forget, we are already dealing with the other financial deficit. Also, if the debate is to be held, let us also consider the reform results on other nations, including the delay in health care treatment to people in Canada and Great Britain. Health and maintaining it for yourself is INCREDIBLY different than Health Care Reform. Let us not confuse the two.
Sep 21st, 2009