LAUSD turns down Jamie Oliver

You probably caught an episode or two of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution last season in which he successfully changed the school lunch program in West Virginia.  We watched him slowly and methodically change the heart and soul of a small town where obesity and health issues saddened even the most stoic.

This morning’s Los Angeles Times reports the show approached the Los Angeles Unified School District for this season and they were turned down.  They basically said “thanks but it could be too time-consuming.”

Half of my clients are children and adolescents who are struggling with their weight and health issues.  Statistics show this is the first generation of children who will live shorter lives than their parents.

When discussing how my young clients can change their eating, the most challenging meal is lunch at school.  Finding a healthy option is practically impossible when the choices are chicken nuggets, French fries, hamburgers, pasta and pizza.  A fruit or vegetable or even a salad is a rare find.

I analyzed a school lunch menu for a private school in Los Angeles a few years back.  The average lunch contained 1500 calories coming predominantly from fat and starchy carbohydrates.  I was flabbergasted and upon showing the analysis to the school they were as well…and their program was healthier than most.

Children will eat what you feed them.  Even if they rebel initially over time they will eat what is given to them.  How amazing an opportunity Los Angeles has been given to have Jamie Oliver overseeing and training employees how to make healthful delicious food. 

Hopefully the district will reconsider and allow this program, despite the industry glamour, to help create a change.  Our children and their health should be the priority – even if it is too “time-consuming.”  Our children’s time may run short and then who is to blame?

Eating with Utensils...A Lost Art to Good Health?

After watching Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution one gets a clear picture of the sober situation of food and weight issues in America.  The show starts out by Jamie trying to make changes in a town called Huntington, West Virginia – coined the unhealthiest city in America.

The series opens with Jamie trying to modify elementary lunches from processed fake foods to real whole foods.  The high resistance to change radiates from the kitchen staff to the superintendant of schools to a DJ who is quite influential in the community.

Jamie meets the most heat when he requests that the children eat with forks and knives versus just a spoon and their hands.  No utensils are used since the children are eating pizza, chicken fingers and French fries.  When they are shown different vegetables the children are not able to identify them.  In fact, one appalling statistic is that a pile of French fries is counted as 2 vegetable servings per child.

When the forks and knives are taken out the children need to be taught how to use them.  Is the skill of using utensils becoming a lost art?

You need utensils to eat real healthy food.  Without these basic skills we are creating a lifestyle where older children eat their food with one hand and use the other hand to text or play games.  This creates a perfect storm for mindless eating.

Mindful healthy eating requires utensils.  Continuing to feed our children processed fake foods is creating a generation of children with increased risk of diabetes and heart disease who will have shorter lives than their parents.  Eating fruits, vegetables and food made from scratch rather than out of a box with multiple ingredients is the mission of  Food Revolution which will hopefully change food in school lunch programs.

It is our responsibility at home and in the schools to educate, equip and model how to eat and appreciate the benefits of healthy real food.  It is an investment this country cannot afford to pass up.

If we can teach our children at an early age to eat with utensils and enjoy whole real food we might start to get a hold on obesity in America….resulting in mindful eating and good health.  Remember, it's prevention not prescription.