TED: Jamie Oliver's Ted Prize wish: Teach every child about food.

Jamie Oliver is a Chef who believes the power of food has a primal place in our homes. He starts his talk by saying 4 people will die within the next 18 minutes because of food. Can you believe 2/3 of Americans are over weight or obese? The children currently living now are cutting 10 years of their life based on their diets.

The top 15 deaths in the United States are listed as : Heart Disease, All Cancer, Stroke, Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease, Accidents, Diabetes, Influenza and Pneumonia, Kidney Disease, Septhroemia, Suicide, Liver Disease, Hypertension, Parkinson's Disease, and Homicide. The top 3 causes are health preventable, as well as diabetes. Diet related diseases are the number 1 killer in the United States.

Obesity cost 10% of our health care costs, totaling 150 billion a year. Within 10 years this will double to 300 billion a year. So what can we do to prevent or help the obesity problem in the United States? Jamie Oliver suggest his triangle that will help with the obesity issue in the US: Home, School and Main St.

Home: Parents need to start cooking again. Foods used to be natural, now they are processed and full of perservatives. Parents need to stop eating out or ordering in. Jamie Oliver introduced a 3rd generation obese family. In the video he had all the food that the family eats sitting on the table. The table was full of pizza, corn dogs, hot dogs, ice cream, etc. For three generations this family has not been educated on healthy foods and nutrition. Their portion sizes were out of control and the choices the family had to choose from were more then unhealthy.

School: Schools feed an average of 31 million children a day, mostly twice a day with breakfast and lunch. Schools play a big role in offering healthy lunches and snacks to the children they feed. The problem is not the lunch ladies, but the people who are in charge of funding in the school districts. Accounts, Admins or whoever is controlling the districts budget only allow their schools a certain amount of money to feed these children a day. The schools have to make this money stretch, unhealthy food options tend to be cheaper then healthier food options. Jamie went into schools and showed children different types of fruits and vegetables, many of the children did not know what these foods were. It reminded me of a clip in Super Size me where children were shown pictures of Ronald McDonalds and knew who he was, but they did not know who Jesus or famous presidents were. This is where schools and parents need to work hand and hand to educate children. Jamie suggested children have life skills and home economic classes, he feels young adults should leave with the basics of cooking and know how to make at least 10 healthy recipes.

Main Street: Business could offer cooking lessons and food education to families. Food ambassadors need to be present in grocery stores to help educate people on the foods they eat and help them with healthy recipes. The government needs to work with fast food chains to weine people off the sugar and fats that people have to choose from when they eat out. Support the Obama campaign to fight obesity in the United States. Jamie feels if the United States changes, others will follow.

Jamie concludes his inspirational talk with his wish. Jamie's wish is for children to be educated on healthy foods, inspire families to cook again and encourage Americans to fight obesity!

I really enjoyed watching this video and could not agree more with Jamie on his thoughts. I tell my students to develop healthy habits now, these habits will follow you into adulthood. I also tell my students bad or unhealthy habits are hard to break. I plan on showing my students this video in hopes it will inspire them to want to learn and to be more healthy!