Report: Food and drink lobby hit anti-obesity efforts hard

The report quoted interviews with members of the food industry who touted the success of their White House lobbying and alleged that the president and First Lady did not advocate for guidelines on healthy food that were drafted by administration agencies.

Nick Papas, a White House spokesman, disagreed.

“The Obama Administration consistently supported the Interagency Working Group and we were disappointed when Congress granted the food industry’s requests and placed new demands on the working group,” he said in a statement to Reuters.

The purported trend nevertheless elicited a strong reaction from the head of the Senate Health Committee.

“I’m upset with the White House,” Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) told Reuters.

“They went wobbly in the knees. When it comes to kids’ health, they shouldn’t go wobbly in the knees.”

Read more from Reuters’s 4,500-word report here.