DEFENDING HEALTHY CHOICES

I just watched the second episode of Jamie Oliver's new show, Food Revolution, and I am just gobsmacked that:

1. Six year olds, presented with a variety of very common vegetables, could not correctly name a single one;

and

2. Children in the West Virginia town of Huntington, and who knows, perhaps across the nation, are not given forks and knives with which to eat. They eat with their fingers or a spoon.

Chef Jamie's got his work cut out for him, and it's clear that he had no idea what he was getting into. I don't think he was at all prepared for the suspicion and hostility with which the town's redneck population would greet a furriner with a funny accent who they perceive as being there to "tell them how to live their lives".  This is not to say that all the locals are hostile rednecks, but there are a fair number. And to be completely fair, there are hostiles who clearly aren't rednecks, and rednecks who clearly aren't hostile. But the obstacles seem overwhelming. Many people are very set in their ways and extremely defensive about changing; and they are defensive about their food.

I can understand being defensive about my food, and about others being critical about what I eat. I understand because I spent so many years feeling that way. Why did I feel that way? Because I'm not stupid. I knew I was not eating as healthfully as I should, and it was reflected in my body. I didn't need to be told I was fat and unhealthy. I knew it. I just didn't want to accept it. And perhaps most importantly, I did not want my comfort taken away. I didn't know what would replace it.

It's not easy to make major lifestyle changes. There are reasons we get to be the way we are. But when something that is not good for us takes over our lives and informs every single decision we make, that is simply unacceptable. We are not free then; we are enslaved. And it does not have to be that way.

We do not have to accept poor health, especially when much of it is based in what we eat and how we move (or fail to move). It's a bad health decision, it's a bad financial decision, it's a bad spiritual and quality of life decision. But to change, we first have to admit that there is a problem. We have to commit to educating ourselves about nutrition and exercise, and I don't mean from commercial or even government sources. Government information on nutrition is extremely biased and influenced by lobbies. And you can't trust the people who are making money off you to tell you unbiased truth about the products they sell. Of course they are going to cast it in the best possible light, and the less scrupulous ones are going to do their best to obscure facts, or downright lie.

Each one of us has to take responsibility for our own health and education. And we have a responsibility to pass good information and habits on to the children in our lives. I don't have kids of my own, but I hope that when my nieces and nephews see how we eat and exercise, it will influence them. I hope when they stay with us and see that our pantry has no junk food, and that when the family as a whole goes to a fast food place Aunt Cindy doesn't eat, they will ask questions.

I'll be keeping an eye on Oliver's Food Revolution. I'm rooting for him. The issue of good food goes so far beyond taste; it really reaches into every aspect of life and of society. I believe that only good can come of making better health a top priority. Go, Jamie!

Comments

[mindy]

I have not watched the show but am eager to. I live in Wood County,WV. The school foodservice program really needs changed. The national school lunch/breakfast program was started because there were kids who were so poor that they could not get meals at home. Basically, it was to put some food in their bellies. School cooks were aloud to make their own menus and use their own recipes. They still had to follow federal guidelines. Now, most of our county school systems are run by 1 person. The food is AWFUL! Cooks dont even wash apples. They come prepackaged, prewashed, presliced and prerotten. EVERYTHING is processed. Our county foodservice director is terrible. French fries are served
EVERYDAY at the local high schools. By law, nothing else is permitted to be sold at the schools except what come from the school foodservice department. However, teachers are making money by selling chips, candy and other unhealthy items to students, on the sly. The schools have contributed to childhood obesity. We have gym teachers who cannot walk a lap around the gym yet can teach the kids to do it. One of my kids had a gym teacher on a walker.Yes,a walker

[Cindy]

Celeste, you're right --- it is VERY difficult to go cold turkey. But as you start to replace poor, heavily processed foods with fresh, simply prepared food, your tastes adjust.

I remember at a party last year, someone offered me a piece of a Hot Pocket, and I thought I'd try it. I spit it out in a napkin --- it was unbelievably nasty! And my nephews devour them.

[Celeste]

Wow. What an eye opener.

I am in my mid-40's and I remember there being knifes, forks and spoons on those nasty institutional green trays in elementary school.

I think our bodies become habituated to the additives and begin to crave them, so to ask children to change a diet in a week is a HUGE up-hill battle. In my own life, I have been trying to have a more healthy diet, but I have found it difficult to cut out the artificial sweetners (although I feel much better when I do). I was unable to go "cold turkey" which is what these children are doing.

I didn't know about this show. Thank for you for the link.

[Cindy]

I dunno, Tune. My two brothers and I had kiddie cutlery when we were little and we were eating with forks and spoons before we ever went to school. As Jamie said on the show, they do it in Great Britain. But when I was a kid, we all sat down to family meals together. A lot of families don't do that any more --- they either eat separately, or grab their dinners and plop in front of the TV.
I think it's just a matter of the parents taking the time to educate their kids. And I do think this is something parents should do, not the responsibility of overworked teachers and lunch room monitors at school, but like so many other things, that may be the only place kids get this kind of education.

I also don't think it's any secret that nutritionally absent food is very often cheap food. But I also know that we grew up pretty poor --- sometimes when payday rolled around there was a whole dollar left in the checking account --- and my mom still managed to buy milk. So I think it's a combination of things. I do think a lot of people need to be educated about nutrition. They know that soft drinks and fried foods aren't good for you, but they may not really understand how bad they are. And when they're relatively cheap and easy to get, that compounds the problem. It's not just in West Virginia, or even just in small town America --- it's everywhere. And also, a lot of that cheap food is artificially cheap, because its production is heavily subsidized by the government and there are powerful food lobbies behind it. If the government was subsidizing the production of fresh veggies the way it does corn, we might be seeing some different menus in the schools.

[Can't Carry a Tune in a Bucket]

Cindy, Sometimes it's better to let children use a spoon until they're in 4 or 5th grade. To 3 boys only a year apart in age, forks and knives at the dinner table present handy means of conflict resolution with one another. Sometimes, it's just fun to annoy your brother by impulsively stabbing his unsuspecting hand with a fork while he's trying to maneuver his peas onto his fork. Believe me it's hard enough to try to teach them to sit properly at the dinner table with good table manners without potential weapons making the job harder.

I didn't understand pop at meals either until it was pointed out to me by a pop mom, milk is 3 times more expensive than pop. Juice is every bit as bad as pop. I would hazard to guess that most people in WV do not so much need to be lectured that "pop is bad" but how to plan economical menus that are comprised of healthy food. I hope that this is what the goal of the show is.

This might be a good one to watch with the kids. When is it on?

[Lindsey]

I worked at Head Start. We were amazed when a child knew how to sit at a table and use cutlery. Perhaps our most frequent question at meal times were: "Where is the TV?" and "Where is my pop?" One family we visted had NO utensils oother than the plastic forks from fast food places; it turned out she had never fed her children anything other than fast food, once they were off the bottle. It is an uphill battle---we had parents sneak fast food into the pokets of their children so they "won't starve on what you feed them."

[Cindy]

I was sort of appalled by the family --- they seem very sweet and bewildered, but that four-year-old girl, already so overweight, just broke my heart. They seem sincere, and I really hope Jamie can help them.

[FitFunk]

I've been watching as well. I love that chubby teen he's connected with - I really hope he can help him.

[H. Skippety]

Wow, I'll have to watch that show.