Will Jamie Oliver Truly Spur a Food Revolution?

Tonight on ABC a new show premieres which caught our attention.

“Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” will feature the British celebrity chef heading to the Huntington, W.Va., area to offer tips, suggestions and education on what it means to make healthy food work for your everyday life.

Huntington is a natural place for the series to start. Last year the Appalachian city received unflattering attention as the nation’s fattest metropolitan area. We reported a few times on Christ Temple Church in Huntington – which was featured on ABC’s “Nightline” – and the exercise and weight management program it was undertaking as part of the regional wake-up call.

During tonight’s program, part of time will be spent at First Baptist Church in nearby Kenova, W.Va., which launched a similar program to Christ Temple.

Christ Temple’s pastor mentioned to me last year how gluttony is often the most conveniently overlooked of the seven deadly sins and that Christians have an additional responsibility to take good care of the body and life God gave them.

This truth certainly applies to children, who so often pattern their eating habits off their parents and other significant adults in their lives. Some of this nutritional guidance comes passively in the form of school lunches

I still vividly remember a scene from the eye-opening documentary “Super Size Me” where host Morgan Spurlock visits a school cafeteria to show the amount of saturated fats in cheap processed foods often the staples in federally subsidized programs at schools in low-income areas depend upon. Having worked and observed educational settings in a variety of schools, I can attest to the fact that where you live has a huge impact on the food and options your kids have at school. Oliver will be exploring this aspect of nutrition on “Food Revolution” as well.

Can one television show truly spark a national movement toward eating all the things we’ve been taught since preschool we’re supposed to eat? That’s probably wishful thinking, but just getting people to think seriously about what they eat and why is more than just a worthwhile academic exercise.