Michelle Obama: ‘mom-in-chief’ wins over the UK

United States’ President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, began their three-day state visit to Britain on Tuesday.

While the President is facing tough times both at home, where he is poised to begin campaigning for re-election in 2012, and abroad after a controversial Middle East policy speech, his wife remains the darling of the US public.

In a recent opinion poll by Quinnipac University in America, the First Lady was the politician most warmly regarded by America, beating her husband by three places. The President came in behind former President Bill Clinton and New Jersey’s Republican Governor Christopher Christie.

She was a hit on her first visit to Britain as First Lady, in 2009. Her bold fashion choices, warm gestures – including hugging the Queen – and down-to-earth visits, including to a school in North London, won over the crowds.

Michelle Obama’s self-proclaimed role as “mom-in-chief” also appeals to many, as she juggles being the wife of the most powerful man in the world with trying to keep family life as normal as it can be in the White House for their two daughters, Sasha and Malia.

But can she pull it off again in Britain? Channel 4 News speaks to body language experts, fashion commentators and charities to find out why America’s “mom-in-chief” has such wide appeal.

Body language

When Michelle Obama put an arm around the Queen in 2009, there was a sharp intake of breath. But it fits in with her personality – and wins her more friends than enemies, body language expert Robert Phipps told Channel 4 News.

“She is very tactile and she empathises with people. If you look at her face when someone is speaking to her, she shows the emotion on her face that the person is talking about,” he said.

She also uses open palm gestures and bends down to people’s level to speak to them, as she is quite tall, he said.

He added: “It’s a combination of learned and natural behaviour – people at this level get training on the do’s and don’ts of international body language. But it is definitely also in her nature to be warm and open.”

Fashion

The First Lady has also taken the world by storm for her bold fashion choices. She backs emerging US designers – and the high street. In the past she has worn UK designers as well, including an Alexander McQueen creation for a state dinner in January (pictured).

Fashion stylist Rebekah Roy told Channel 4 News that her fashion choices were another way that people, particularly women, related to her.

She said: “In a way it is a uniform, but that is no different to all women. We all find shapes we like and feel comfortable in – she is like every other woman in the way she dresses so we can relate to her.

“Plus we can admire her good arms – she makes it feminine to be in good shape.”

She said that it would be good to see Mrs Obama in Vivienne Westwood or Amanda Wakeley while she was in the UK.

She added: “She’s kind of like Jackie O – she’s a style icon. Not just for black women, for all women. You can be a strong woman, not a US size four, and still look amazing.”

Campaigns

It’s also important to remember that Michelle Obama is not just a clothes horse – nor is she just the President’s wife. Originally his mentor when they met at a Chicago law firm, she had a successful career as a lawyer and public administration executive before the presidential campaign kicked off in 2007.

A serious intellect, she attended Princeton and Harvard before meeting Barack. She now sees her role – alongside her “mom-in-chief” moniker – as a chance to support causes she cares passionately about.

She has become an excellent ambassador for child health. MEND’s Paul Sacher

She has recently launched a campaign in the US called Let’s Move, aiming to tackle childhood obesity (pictured on a mass work-out earlier this month, above).

Her involvement in the drive to make children healthier is a boost for all campaigners, a UK organisation – which is planning a similar Move It campaign for National Childhood Obesity Week in July – told Channel 4 News.

Paul Sacher, Chief Research and Development Officer at MEND, the leading provider of free healthy lifestyle programmes for families in the UK, said: “By taking America’s childhood obesity epidemic into her own hands, Michelle Obama has become an excellent ambassador for child health.

“Her Let’s Move initiative seeks to create a generation of healthier kids.”

But she’s not perfect…

But this is Britain. We are the nation that backs the underdog. Can we really fall under the spell of this successful alpha female?

She’s clever, kind, passionate, clearly in love with her husband (who happens to be the most powerful man in the world), empathetic and beautiful. Plus she has great arms and killer outfits.

But it is when Michelle Obama seems most like a normal woman that she is most embraced by the “ordinary” citizen. Not for her the polish, but seeming froideur, of Carla Bruni or even the awe-inspiring, majestic persona of our own Queen.

She makes mistakes, she has accidents – including one of the most famous, when she said on the campaign trail with Obama in 2009: “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country.”

So her arrival in Ireland on Monday might just have sealed the deal for the Brits.

The moment her hair, caught in a gust of Dublin wind, flew up into her face (pictured), that was it: a nation took “Mobama” into their hearts.