Monday, April 26, 2010

Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food

By Sarah S.



In the TED Talk, Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food, the speaker is an English chef who has had many TV shows about food. Lately, he has been focusing on changing the way America eats, as seen in his show Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Jamie gives some very good ideas on how to change the way we eat.

Jamie starts off with a startling fact: in the time it takes to complete his talk, 18 minutes, four Americans will die from obesity. This is because, as he says, America is one of the unhealthiest countries in the world. He shows a chart of the highest causes of death in the United States; in the top six, four are related to obesity. The show, Food Revolution, starts off in the most unhealthy state in the U.S., West Virginia. Jamie shows pictures of the people from Huntington, West Virginia. One that stands out the most was of a 16 year old girl who only has 6 more years to live because of her weight. He then looks at how coffins have changed to accommodate the obese size of people.

Jamie places blame for obesity on 3 things, main street, home, and the school. Main street refers to fast food restaurants and the food that they serve. Home is where parents are feeding their children unhealthy food everyday. Finally, he places most blame on the schools. Because of tight budgets, they choose to buy cheap, unhealthy food. Most kids eat breakfast and lunch at school, and Jamie says the food they are served is just like fast food. A quick video clip from Jamie's show, shows how the kids from Huntington do not know anything about food, and could not identify most of the vegetables he showed to them.

His goals to fix the problems are: to have someone in grocery stores showing people how to cook fast, healthy meals, and for big businesses to put food education at the front of their business. Also, for the fast food restaurants to slowly take the fat and sugar out of their foods, and for the schools to have fresh food from local growers in the cafeterias. Lastly, to teach children how to cook at least 10 meals before leaving school.

"My wish is for you to help a strong sustainable movement to educate every child about food, to inspire families to cook again, and to empower people everywhere to fight obesity.
" That is Jamie's goal, and wish on how to improve the problem of obesity.

Jamie Oliver delivers a very strong argument. At the start he states scary facts, and shows unnerving pictures that creates a desire in the audience to know how to fix the major problem that we are all facing. His solution is to go directly to the next generation, all the children, and make them healthy; to teach them about food, so that they can continue living healthy and show their children how to be healthy too.

The talk is very persuasive. There are always people around that are obese, and we all know it is wrong since it is shortening their life and it affects all their family and friends. Jamie makes you see the bad in how we eat, and makes you want to help change the problem.


I think this talk was very good. The problem is very prevalent in today's society, and it needs to be addressed if we ever want it to be fixed. Therefore, after watching the Talk, it makes me realize how our society has to change. That is a big challenge to take on, but we can do little things like making our own family healthier, encouraging our parents to buy healthy food, and writing to our school administrations asking for fresh meals that include all the food groups.

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