Healthful food … at Wal-Mart?

Walmart isn’t often praised for promoting good eating habits, but a five-year plan to reduce its prices on fruits and vegetables, slash sodium, trans fats and sugars in its broad array of house-brand products, and open stores serving healthful food in poorly served urban areas may change its image, according to media reports.

The superstore is collaborating with First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign, which promotes healthful habits among Americans, especially kids.

Walmart isn’t the first company to make such changes, but its size means it will have a big impact on the affordability of healthful food. “Walmart is in a position almost like the Food and Drug Administration,” Michael Jacobsen, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told the New York Times. “I think it really pushes the food industry in the right direction.”