Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Fail

I have been enjoying Jamie Oliver's kinetic whirlwind act on his Food Revolution show. The first two episodes have chronicled his efforts to transform the lunch foods on offer at an elementary school in Huntington, West Virginia, the supposed unhealthiest city in America. It is quite entertaining and it is raising awareness of the issue of unhealthy school lunches in our collective conscience, but according to an article at Alternet it may be a failure at its grand goal of revolutionizing the school lunches at the school.

Spoiler Alert: If you're a fan of the show and want to see things unfold over the next couple of weeks you may want to skip the rest of this post. It reports on the progress 2 months into the process in real time whereas the show is only two weeks in.

Arun Gupta reports;

The reality behind "Food Revolution" is that after the first two months of the new meals, children were overwhelmingly unhappy with the food, milk consumption plummeted and many students dropped out of the school lunch program, which one school official called "staggering." On top of that food costs were way over budget, the school district was saddled with other unmanageable expenses, and Jamie's failure to meet nutritional guidelines had school officials worried they would lose federal funding and the state department of education would intervene.

In short, the "Food Revolution" has flunked out. At Central City Elementary, where Jamie burst in with loads of fanfare, expense and energy, the school has reintroduced the regular school menu and flavored milk because the "Food Revolution" meals were so unpopular. In what looks like a face-saving gesture, Jamie's menu remains as a lunchtime option, but given the negative student response, don't be surprised if it's quietly phased out by next school year. (You can see both menus here.)

Ultimately, Jamie picked the wrong target. Dr. Carole Harris, who along with Dr. Drew Bradlyn evaluated student responses at Central City Elementary to the "Food Revolution" program, says factors such as sedentary lifestyles, fast-food consumption, family meal patterns and junk-food advertising aimed at children are "a much bigger problem than food served in schools."

Even if Oliver's efforts don't ultimately revolutionize the lunch menus at Central elementary I wouldn't call the show a failure. It is raising awareness, taking the niche conversation about food lunches and making it mainstream. Feel good entertainment and fly by celebrities will never revolutionize a communities food systems - that takes local folks embedded in the community to network and sort through it. It's the old time mantra of community organizing - Don't do for people what they can and should do for themselves. Empower them to speak for themselves.

The real issue in Huntington is poverty - with almost 25% of the population living below the poverty line. When the cameras leave town and ABC stops supplementing the school districts food budget they will be left to deal with that.

Comments

[Erin]

It was almost deemed to fail. I know, from personal experience, that it takes baby steps to transform even a family's diet. My husband (of all people) was the last hold out on my drive to get rid of HFCS, add brown rice, and other initial steps a few years ago. I can't imagine that the school kids were more receptive than he was. They don't have the vision to see the long-term effect on their lives. Plus, truthfully, seriously overweight is the "normal" for an entire generation of children. (That thought occurred to me as I was sitting in a movie theatre and watching all the patrons arrive. It was striking in a setting such as a movie theatre.)

[nancy]

Erin, what's HFCS?

[Karen]

Nancy, that stands for high fructose corn syrup. I agree with Erin, anything but baby steps are nearly impossible to take, although we've had better luck introducing foods by growing them -- I can't imagine the kids would have taken to kale from the grocery store, but after a season of picking it from the garden they've occasionally asked for it from the store.

[lilly adams]

I think in order to be successful in your weight loss journey you need to track your food calories. Exercise is also really important to speeding up the weight loss process. I found this website that allows you to track all of your daily calories for free. It will help you with your new diet plan. www.fitclick.com/foodcalories

[Michelle Sidles]

It's sad. But the point is well made. The main issue being poverty. My kids don't eat school lunches at all. I buy groceries and they pack a lunch (way healthier than what they would get at school). However, we are not a family who lives at poverty level or is dependent on the "Free & Reduced Lunch Program" at school. There are families who can't afford to feed their kids three meals a day and for those family the breakfast and lunch programs at school are a God send.

However, the people who I know who are watching the show aren't living at poverty level. They are simply ignorant about school lunches lack of balance and nutrition. For all of those families I see a new awareness. In terms of those families all across the nation who have the means to make changes and lobby on behalf of all children the show is a success. I guess success and failure depends on what you're measuring. ;)