TED Prize : Wishes Big Enough to Change the World
Jamie Oliver, a chef from England who was known as The Naked Chef, is on a mission to eradicate obesity. While he has already spread the word in his native land, he is now in the USA, the motherboard for fat, hoping to really get the revolution started. He says in this video  that if America can make big changes, he believes the rest of the world will follow. I am encouraged to see the strides he is making in this country by holding talks, and now a show about working with a small town in West Virginia, known as the unhealthiest town in the country, to get them into shape.
While I consider Jamie’s work commendable, and I support him all the way, I wish he would explain that obesity is just one of the symptoms of the poor health this country is in due to an atrocious diet and sedentary lifestyle. Being fat is just the body’s natural reaction to an unnatural situation. It is not natural to eat all the artificial foodstuff that we eat in this country. And it is also not natural for humans to sit at desks all day and then in front of computers and tv’s all night. We need to truly explain how much our civilization has changed over the past century to better understand how to attack this problem.
Getting fat is only the tip of the iceberg. We can see fat and therefore make the connection that eating too much and moving too little have played a role in this. But what many people don’t see or make the connection with, is that this lifestyle of fast food and less activity also contributes to many other health problems like heart disease, diabetes, some cancers, depression, ADHD, asthma, allergies and autoimmune diseases. This lifestyle is killing us, all of us.
Like Jamie, I think education is one of the keys to getting this obesity epidemic turned around. We need to teach people about real food and the harmful ingredients they are consuming everyday unwittingly. We need to force our food manufacturers to provide the truth on their labels. We need to encourage more sustainable farming practices and encourage people to support these efforts by shopping locally to get more fresh food for their families. We need to require our schools to provide more natural, whole foods for our children, and to educate them about how to make healthier choices. And we need our government to stand up to many big businesses and demand they improve their standards, or face big consequences.
This is not to say we should police what people eat and do. It is more about our society changing their attitude about food and sustainability. It is also about greed and lying. We have been coerced into buying fake food for a long time. With very powerful artificial ingredients that cause cravings, and offering this junk at such low prices, the food industry has known for a long time how to get us hooked on their products. And we are hooked. Our metabolism has been damaged by these man-made ingredients, and our brains are now wired to need more.
So my hat is off to you Jamie Oliver. You have a long road ahead of you, but many of us will be there for the long haul. We are tired of feeling and looking like crap. We are tired of our kids having ADHD and being drugged into submission. We are tired of dealing with allergies and asthma, and not doing well in school, and getting lazier by the minute. And we are exhausted from the pain and suffering we feel from losing too many loved ones to this modern killing machine. It’s time for a food fight, a food revelation- a food revolution!