Trying to Put Nutrition on the Lunchroom Menu
By MIKE HALE
Published: March 25, 2010
The British celebrity chef chastises and cajoles as he tries to bring healthy eating to students in Huntington, W.Va., in this ABC reality series.
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The show premieres on ABC tonight @ 9pm, but has already received lots of mixed feedback from food-focused listservs and blogs, and mainstream media and talk shows alike. The NY Times review posted here captures the dominant response: the show makes for good reality TV, but its impact as a real "food revolution" in America (or even Huntington, WV) will likely be minimal.
I'd be curious to hear reactions from any of you that happen to catch the season premiere tonight!
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I watched the first episode of this show last night, and overall I enjoyed it and found myself looking forward to the next one. What struck me most about the show is how evenly divided your sympathies are as a viewer - on the one hand, I found myself agreeing with Jamie Oliver: his principles about the importance of helping children form a healthy relationship with their food and his reasons for wanting to change that relationship in America are hard to argue with. On the other hand, I also found myself siding with the lunch ladies and other locals of Huntington, WV: their attitude of "who is he to tell us what to do and how to change" is completely understandable in spite of how genuine and potentially beneficial Jamie's efforts are. The show features the typical shock value moments reality TV does best, some of which truly are shocking (Jamie points to a tomato and asks an elementary school student what it is - the child replies, "a potato"). But at this show's heart is an important message about the need for serious reform of our current school lunch system (I wouldn't go as far as Jamie does and claim that he's starting America's food revolution, since there is arguably much more change in the food industry happening outside of his efforts in Huntington, WV, though none of it captured on ABC). At the very least, if people watch this show, they'll become aware of one of America's many food issues, and, as I've said many times before, awareness is the first step towards change. Whether this show is indeed successful (in terms of its lasting effects on Huntington, WV, not its ratings and/or viewership) won't be known for quite some time. For now, it's definitely worth watching, in spite of its potentially problematic premise and occasional irksome moments.
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