It's come to this:

First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" initiative is praising textbook publishers for "swapping out cupcakes for apples in math problems," in a campaign to incorporate health information into the learning resources for kids.

"Today at the White House, we celebrated a group of educational publishers on their development of voluntary guidance to incorporate health information into textbooks and other learning materials," Let's Move! said in a blog post entitled, "Cookies 2 Carrots," on Wednesday.

"Publishers are making simple changes, like swapping out cupcakes for apples in math problems," the anti-obesity initiative noted. "They are also finding ways to include physical activity in lesson plans - discussing the history of little league baseball and using sports in word problems."

Let's Move! - a government initiative started by Mrs. Obama - aims to curb the obesity rate among children in the U.S. Mrs. Obama has recently expanded her campaign to museums and zoos asking them to change their menus, and also wants to "impact the nature of food in grocery stores."

The first lady now wants textbook companies to join the cause.

So, yeah - it's basically harmless right? After all, it's all voluntary. Forget the idea that government would ever employ subtleties like "Nice textbook company you got there. Be a shame to see you lose school contracts because you prefer cupcakes to apples."

There's "voluntary" standards and then there's the "Chicago Way."