There are some things that are unavoidable in life. With power comes responsibility and with food comes health and nutritional standards. But for British chef Jamie Oliver, it has become so much more than that. For years he has been campaigning vigorously about making food healthy with a clear focus on kids before business. He explains that he “has never been more depressed” about the state of child health across the globe. He has used his recent “Food Revolution” to highlight to a global audience the dire state we are in. Among the figures, he states that 41 million children under the age of 5 are obese or overweight and 159 million are suffering from malnourishment.
Ever since he made a television show on making school kids’ food healthy in the US in 2010, he has been promoting the need to ensure our choice isn’t restricted to fast food and unhealthy snacks. For the past 18 months, he has been advocating for a sugar tax in the United Kingdom for sugar and confectionary drinks such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi. This is to make sure that we all cut down on our consumption and that “our kids’ health comes first.” and “the government… take[s] initiatives to ensure that children are better aware of the harmful effects of sugar”. His efforts have been surprisingly successful with the British government agreeing to introduce the new tax by 2018. Having gained some drive, he now intends to take on giants McDonalds and Coca-Cola to ensure they meet health and nutritional standards before becoming sponsors of events such as the Olympics.
Finally, he has also stated that India’s young and vast population means that “it is necessary that this campaign continues to gather momentum [in India]”.
For him, it is a global fight and one that is certainly going to make a difference in our future.