Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

WEBSITE- http://www.jamieoliver.com/campaigns/jamies-food-revolution

This past weekend I watched the last four episodes of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. In this show, Jamie Oliver, a British celebrity chef comes to the most obese town in America, (Huntington, West Virginia) to attempts to change the public school's food system and the eating habits of the whole community.

This show is truly amazing! It identifies America's eating problem on a personal level. Jamie does not exploit these people, but shows them that he's there to really help. He really goes to know the community and it's people, and uses their stories to inspire change. For me, this show revealed how much more attention we need to pay to youth. One of Jamie's main points is that the youth today is the first generation that is said to live a shorter life than their parents. Obesity is such a major issue that it is seriously changing the life expectancy rate. In one of the episodes Jamie shows a group of 4-6 yr-olds some fresh produce. He asks the children what fruits and vegetables. Not one child could identify any of the fruits and vegetables by name. Oliver held up tomatoes and a kid guessed potato, however every child could identify a chicken nugget. This just goes to show how we need to educate our youth about food, just like history and English. If kids are taught how to eat right in school, maybe they can support positive change for the whole family.

In one episode, Jamie also goes into the local High School to find out what they're eating. The kids have their choice of food and most of them are eating french fries everyday. He wants to make his own food to see what they think of it, but he runs into trouble with the superintendent. She says that the meal doesn't have an adequate amount of veggies (even though it is a veggie stir fry) so he will have to serve it with fries so it is up to code. In the health handbook, french fries are considered a vegetable and therefore "nutritious". This is completely crazy. Everyone knows that french fries have almost no nutritional content, yet they are being fed to students.

I think Jamie is the perfect pick for hosting this show. He is young and passionate. In the high school Jamie asks for students to volunteer if they're interested in his mission. Because he is so young he can really identify with the students and it seems like they think he is really cool( not some old, mean, high school teacher.) He gets the kids together to talk about their issues and uses the students as spokespeople to rally for support and change in the community. I thought this is great way to get the community involved. Jamie really brings the issues to the people and makes it about them.

Before watching this show, I never would of guessed how hard it would be to motivate people to eat healthy. In the beginning everyone in Huntington is very adverse to someone coming in and telling them they are unhealthy and that they need to change. It is very interesting to follow their story. I think this show is one of the first to really be about helping people. There is drama and it is a reality tv show, but with all of the right interests. The drama isn't the focal point, it's about making families and communities know that eating healthy is easier than they had thought. It's educational and entertaining. I wish we'd see more of this on cable or in Hollywood. This show is on regular network television and it teaches that you don't need to go to Whole Foods or have a lot of money to eat right. Oliver's Food Revolution is exactly what American's need to see and hopefully it will really take effect and change some peoples eating habits and improve lives.