Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution – Rave!

Jamie Oliver, world renown chef who has written many food-based books http://bit.ly/aSZqO0 and hosted several cooking shows has now taken America by storm with his new television show “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.”

He wants to challenge most Americans’ perception of food, and demonstrate how eating real food can diminish our country’s problems of obesity, heart disease and diabetes. He believes that this is especially true for children, so their lives are not shortened by the bad habits of their families, schools and society.

In the six-part series, Jamie heads to Huntington, West Virginia because it has been called the unhealthiest city in America. Jamie wants to do something about that. The 3 main challenges that Jaime wants to take on in Huntington in hopes of inspiring the rest of the nation are:

School Meals: To replace the processed school food with meals that were cooked from fresh ingredients, met the nutrition standards, and appealed to the kids. The school meals I trialled are now being rolled out to the rest of the school district.

Home: To show families that cooking at home from scratch is better for them, not to mention cheaper. We set up a community kitchen in Huntington that holds two cooking classes a day for local families. It is now being run by a local healthcare charity.

Main Street: To get the whole town cooking again and show people that they do have an alternative to the processed and fast food that’s invaded the American main street. We went into churches, colleges, workplaces, the local fire station, and as many places as we could think of, to teach as many people as possible a few quick and simple meals. That has changed people’s lives.

Kudos to Jamie Oliver for taking such an interest in teaching children about nutrition, food and cooking so that they will be able to reverse the foods trends taking over the country and the world. Through this television show he is opening people’s eyes to the dangers of unhealthy eating and the nutritional superiority of real food.

To learn more about Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution visit:
http://www.jamieoliver.com/campaigns/jamies-food-revolution

And don’t forget to watch the show on Fridays at 9:00 PM on ABC!

You can get a glimpse of it here:

Do TV Ads Affect Children's Diets or Cause Obesity?

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago Institute for Health Research and Policy have received a $2.2 million federal grant to determine whether or not TV food advertising affects children's diet, physical activity and weight.

The four-year project, funded by the National Cancer Institute, is unique because it will separate out the effect of food advertising from the amount of time that children watch TV.

"A number of studies have shown that increased TV watching is associated with higher weight outcomes among kids, but they haven't been able to determine whether or not this is directly due to the type of ads children see," said Lisa Powell, research professor of economics at UIC and lead scientist on the study.

Watching television may also contribute to obesity because children are sedentary and likely to snack while they watch TV.

The research, Powell said, can provide important information for policymakers and public health advocates about the potential effectiveness of regulating television food advertising to children and using TV media campaigns as policy tools for improving these health outcomes.
Previous research conducted by Powell and her colleagues showed that 98 percent of food-product ads viewed by children ages 2 to 11, and 89 percent of those viewed by adolescents ages 12 to 17, were for foods high in fat, sugar or sodium.

The current study is the first to combine food, beverage and restaurant ad ratings and nutritional data with individual data on obesity to analyze the relationship between product exposure, nutritional content of ad exposure, and food consumption, diet quality and obesity, according to the researchers.
The study will also examine the relationship between exposure to health promotion ads -- those that encourage eating fruits and vegetables or getting regular physical activity -- and individual behaviors related to diet, activity and weight outcomes.

By measuring the types of ads that children of different ages and races are exposed to, the researchers hope to be able to determine if advertising practices and television viewing patterns contribute to differences in diet and obesity among white and black children.

This work builds on previous studies Powell and her colleagues have conducted examining the effects of environmental factors on children's obesity.

Powell hopes this study will play a crucial role in determining whether or not stronger regulation may be needed for food advertising on children's programming.

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news186083052.html