Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Sticks

The Washington Post is running an article about the aftermath of Jamie Oliver's sudden appearance in Huntington, West Virginia.  Spoilers abound, so if you're planning to watch the last episode this Friday, you may not want to click to read farther!

For the most part, Oliver's changes have stuck.  This is nothing short of astonishing, if you have seen the first few episodes of the series.  I was pretty sure, at several points, that Oliver was going to get drummed right out of town.  

The real turning point for me was the episode when the local radio DJ had a change of heart.  This is also where you can see what the West Virginia residents were railing against.  They had the impression, apparently, that Oliver was coming in there to wag his finger and tell them to eat their vegetables.  Like some kind of annoying, officious aunt.  

Oliver changed the DJ's mind by taking him to a local funeral home, where the funeral directors showed him their super-sized coffin.  And pointed out that it had been sold many times over.  The coffin is so big that it can only be moved by forklift.  This is a coffin for someone in the 500-800 pound range.  And astonishingly, it gets used.  

Then the kids (Jamie's allies) talked to the DJ about their own personal experiences.  Several of the kids are overweight themselves, and the others have lost family members to obesity.

America's obesity epidemic isn't an issue of someone sticking their nose into your business, telling you what you should or shouldn't do.  It is a health care crisis, just as big as lead paint or prescribing thalidomide to pregnant women.  Our national eating habits are reaching proportions of epic crisis, like a runaway car, unable to stop.  And every day it seems to get worse.

The scene with the hospital administrators talking about how they don't want Huntington to get bad press is just infuriating.  As Oliver pointed out, he isn't trying to make a mockery of West Virginia.  It's just statistics.  Math.  Numbers.  Facts!  Huntington is the fattest city in our fat country.  He's not picking on Huntington; Huntington picked on itself.

And by elevating Huntington's issues to the national level, Oliver managed to bring the problem home to a lot of people.  "Food Revolution" has crept into our collective minds more effectively than Michael Pollan's screeds, if only because it took the same basic information and trotted it out dressed like a reality television show.

There was some ground lost in Huntington.  The sugary flavored milks will, sadly, remain on the menu.  But Oliver's greatest challenge, the mean lunch lady Alice, eventually came around to Oliver's side.  And if Alice has become a believer, I have to call Jamie Oliver's project a success.

PBS is going to air "Food, Inc" tonight.  Will it have the same impact?  "Food Inc" covers the same territory, but is far more confrontational and graphic about it.  Part of the Food Revolution's success has to be Oliver's surprising tact and diplomacy, and insistence on emphasizing the positives (fresh food for the kids) rather than wagging his finger in accusation.  And that may be the biggest lesson of all.