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Jamie Oliver Heads to West Virginia to Reform School Lunch
British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has picked a city for his new U.S. reality TV show. Starting this fall, Oliver will work with local officials to bring healthy food to America’s fattest city: Huntington, West Virginia.
He has his work cut out for him. Huntington and the surrounding rural counties boast an obesity rate of almost 50 percent. The area is also one of the top regions for diet-related diseases; almost one-quarter of residents have heart disease and 13 percent have diabetes. According to the Associated Press, the number of pizza restaurants in the Huntington is greater than the number of gyms in the entire state of West Virginia.
The show in Huntington, which will air on ABC next year, will expand on Oliver’s two British shows. In one of those, “Jamie’s School Dinners,” Oliver took over a cafeteria and worked with a “dinner lady” to show that school food could be healthy and delicious. His campaign for nutritious lunches convinced Prime Minister Tony Blaire to set new standards for school meals and allocate £280 million for food, facilities and training.
In West Virginia, Oliver will work with local officials to bring healthy food into grocery stores, restaurants, office buildings and, of course, school cafeterias. The food in Huntington’s schools is standard lunchroom fare — cheeseburgers, mini corndogs, chicken nuggets, french fries and fish and chips, to name a few offerings. Rhonda McCoy, the food services director in Huntington’s Cabell County Schools, said the food service department has made a number of recent improvements on its own. Cafeterias used to serve French fries in all the food lines, she said, and now they offer them in only one line. They’ve also started putting out fresh fruit next to the cookies and cakes on the dessert line.
Even with the celebrity chef factor, McCoy wasn’t overly optimistic about Oliver’s project. “I don’t think you can revamp your program in just a short time, ” she said. “It has to be a gradual change.” Still, McCoy said she’s open to working with Oliver as long as his ideas “meet the guidelines and the budget.”
Indeed, she is hoping for some positive changes, particularly when it comes to teaching kids about making the right food choices. “We have found products here that are low in sodium and low in fat,” she said as she told me about the chicken nuggets and hamburger patties she serves. “But when students go home they don’t find those low-fat items in the grocery store. Maybe we need to fix that a little. I hope he’ll key in on that.”
Looks like he’ll do much more. If Oliver’s British show is any predictor, Huntington students will soon be eating vegetable cannelloni and fish in curry coconut sauce. Goodbye chicken nuggets.
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:16 am
Thank god for Jamie Oliver. Jamie’s School Lunches was a great show, and hopefully this one will be just as successful.
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:07 pm
[...] This post was Twitted by eatsustainable [...]
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:17 pm
[...] jamie oliver, the world famous chef known for simple cooking and campaigning to change the food school children are eating in the uk, will be filming a 6 part series in huntington, wv this fall according to schoolfoodpolicy.com. [...]
August 22nd, 2009 at 7:46 am
Brilliant.
His School Lunches documentary recorded what happened with the schools, the officials, the budgets, the government, the food giants, the mothers…the KIDS, and did so in an extraordinarily entertaining way.
My kids watched it and they got it. And it stuck.
Thrilled that Jamie is coming to spread some of his inspiration and charm in America. The kid’s got a way of shaking people up and looking at the obvious, but from a fantastically refreshing viewpoint.
August 30th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Thank goodness for Jamie Oliver! First things first, fix the low-cost high calorie school lunches that poison our youth. Second, despel the myth - is it fact, fiction or fog that Huntington is a fast-food test market to determine if the “gigantic juicy 8 lb, 3 animal burger” will sell in other outlets in America? Finally, go Jamie go! Take Huntington from #1 unhealthy to Top 25 Healthiest and reap the rewards. You will certainly deserve it. As a native Huntingtonian (now defected) and frequent visitor, I often gasp at the size and health condition of “my people.” Cheers and applause to Jamie Oliver. May you reach your highest success in this fine city.
September 2nd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
As a healthy Huntington resident who is embaressed by the statistics of this town…thank goodness someone is coming to help all the unhealthy fat people of this city. i hope this show has a positive impact on this city to lead healthier more productive lives!!
September 4th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
i really cannot wait for him to come to my school:) i go to hhs(huntington high school) there are ALOT of ppl there he could help..i pack my lunch.. u should see the pizza.. i could get a gallon of grease off of one slice..uhm..disgusting! i am comletely humiltiated at the charts of huntington’s fat rate..it makes us ALL look like lazy people.. im not one of those people and it embarresses me that huntington, wv has that label