First lady Michelle Obama has a message for all restaurant owners: Stop serving those fatty burgers. And those sugary mochas. And those greasy sausage biscuit sandwiches. Foodservice operations need to purge themselves of these things — for the kids, of course.


Sound crazy? That was the implication of an anti-obesity speech that the first lady gave to the National Restaurant 
Association last month. “Even if we give parents all the information they need and improve school meals and build brand new supermarkets on every corner, none of that matters if when families step into a restaurant, they can’t make a healthy choice,” she said.


Get that? It’s not that guests “might not” make a healthy choice. It’s that they can’t, in the sense that there are no healthy options.


Nothing will be good enough until establishments all offer what she deems to be healthy items on the menu. At least she was honest about her views.


But this logic — which drips of government-mandated menus — has more holes than a doughnut shop. Restaurants are not the cause of obesity any more than NASCAR is to blame for speeding tickets.


According to a recent survey from Rasmussen Reports, only 4 percent of Americans dine out more than three times a week. So for the vast 
majority of Americans, restaurant meals make up a small slice of what hits their stomachs.


As for the first lady’s 
assumption that operators don’t already offer healthy items, that’s just not true. Even McDonald’s offers salads these days. And kids’ meals can come with juice and apple slices instead of fries and a soda. Sit-down establishments offer reduced-calorie options, like Chili’s “Guiltless Grill” menu.


With a recent report from the Brookings Institute estimating that obesity costs over $200 billion per year, it’s clear where this is heading: State legislators and their “food police” backers are preparing to launch another assault on menus.


It’ll come in the form of food or soft drink taxes, as we’ve seen in the past year. A proposal in San Francisco to ban toys with meals also may catch a wave. Or perhaps South Los Angeles’ moratorium on new quick-service restaurants will spread.


Meanwhile, President Obama offers a complete contrast on 
eating out and health.


Mr. Obama has had media coverage over foods that would have Mrs. Obama wagging her finger. The president has dined with Vice President Biden and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev at the Arlington, Va., burger joint, Ray’s Hell Burger. And in May, President Obama noshed on some Buffalo wings in another story.


Yet, for all of the high-calorie hullaballoo, President Obama is thin as a rail. What gives?


It’s all about moderation. President Obama is a living, breathing, skinny example of how you can chow down on high-fat, high-calorie, high-deliciousness foods and still be perfectly healthy. It’s simply that he eats these foods in moderation — and backs it up with an exercise regimen. He plays basketball, gets cardio exercise and has been playing plenty of golf recently.


So it came as no surprise to read that research published in August determined that a full 30 percent of the difference in obesity rates between states and cities can be explained by how much people walk and bike.


And, in fact, you don’t even need to be as svelte as Obama to reap the health benefits of physical activity. Even if you’re still a little overweight, health 
research has shown that being “fit and fat” can be better than being skinny but having little activity.
For kids, evidence has consistently supported exercise and activity improving test scores and the ability to concentrate. And recent research in the journal Obesity discovered overweight people lived at least as long as those with normal weight — and had a lower risk of dying. 


Unfortunately, only 5 percent of Americans exercise vigorously on any given day. And over 75 percent of Americans have jobs where they mostly sit on their duffs. It’s easier than ever to be sedentary, thanks to the technological evolution that’s engineered small bouts of physical activity out of our lives, from washing and drying machines to ride-on lawnmowers.


Pointing fingers at a small subset of one side of the equation — restaurant food — is missing the forest for the trees. If you agree with me, drop a note to Michelle Obama at firstlady@whitehouse.gov or call (202) 456-1111.

Richard Berman is president of Berman & Co., a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm.