• Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Wednesday, April 14, 2010 10:41 AM

Kate Andersen Brower writes that Michelle Obama's lobbying of companies to make products healthier, labels easier to read and to limit the marketing of unhealthy foods to kids is paying off. PepsiCo has pledged to stop selling full-sugar soft drinks in schools by 2012; Kraft says it will reduce sodium in its products; several drink companies are posting calorie content on their front labels.

"She puts the spotlight on the issue like few others can," says David Kessler, who was Food and Drug Administration commissioner from 1990 to 1997. And Rhonda Jordan, Kraft's president of health and wellness, says Obama has "accelerated our focus."

Patrick Basham, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, says the companies may hope to prevent a broader crackdown. "The food industry is terrified of being either legislated out of business or so regulated they won't be able to do what they want," he says. But activist Carol Tucker-Foreman, a food policy fellow at the Consumer Federation of America, says the efforts won't be sufficient to reach Obama's goal of ending obesity. "The food manufacturers can reduce the calories in their products but it's hard for them to say, 'eat less,'" she said.

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