Jamie Oliver Presented with Healthy Cup Award!

Jamie Oliver Presented With Healthy Cup Award!

Thu 24 May 2012

Story by Kimberly Yorio
 

Jamie Presented with Healthy Cup Award from Harvard School of Public Health


On Tuesday night in Boston in front of a sold-out auditorium of more than 500 people, Jamie was honored by the Harvard School of Public Health for his "transformational work in the fight against childhood obesity," capping the extraordinary global weekend of Food Revolution Day events.

Presented the “Healthy Cup Award” by Dr. Walter Willett, chair of Harvard School of Public Health's Department of Nutrition, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the leading scientist (and original food revolutionary) in the battle against obesity, Jamie took the stage and captivated the crowd with his ideas for a better world:

“Imagine a World Where:

• Any child, from any community has the same access to a happy, healthy long life: rich or poor and regardless of race or religion.

• Governments aren’t paid off to protect the giant food corporations searching for ever more profit.

• All children can get clean, safe water in schools.

• Every child is taught where food comes from, how it affects their bodies, how much joy and fun it can bring to families and how it can literally save their lives.

• Children who go to school 180 days a year from the ages of 4 – 18 are served real wholesome, fresh food that helps their bodies grow and learn.

• Families have time to sit down to dinner together at least once a week.

• What you read on the back of food packaging and what you hear in TV advertising is actually the whole truth.

• The fast food industry not only spends billions of dollars marketing highly processed junk foods, but passionately promotes fresh fruits, vegetables and salads in a tasty, cool way.

• Hunger and obesity don’t live two miles away from each other.

• The FDA and USDA actually spend time looking after only the children's interests and not the special interest money.

• Small family farmers that really need help are supported, and not the industrial farms that don’t.

• Real food is as readily available as junk.

• Milk is just milk and not riddled with more sugar and additives than soda.

• Chicken could just be chicken, and the ingredients list didn't read like a scientific equation.

• A child’s best interest isn’t compromised by the meat processing industry, the milk industry, the grain industry, sugar cartels, unions, or lobbyists, just to mention but a few.

• Kids have more than 23 minutes to have their lunch and get active at school.

• The biggest cause of death isn't self-inflicted through food.”

The crowd made up of nutritionists, professors, chefs and foodies cheered as Jamie explained that while he didn’t have all of the answers and even though the world is still heading in the wrong direction on obesity-related diseases, he remained hopeful. He said, “Good health is a basic human right. My uncompromised belief is that whether English or American, or any dudes on the planet really, I believe that most of the time, we will make great decisions if we’re informed properly.”

Watch Jamie's entire speech here (It's 20 minutes long but worth every second).

About the author: Kimberly Yorio (@kimyorio) is Jamie's US publicist.