A new kind of Revolution!!

I wasn't quite sure what to expect for this blog response. I had never heard of Jamie Oliver or the TED Prize. As I watched the opening credits I noticed a video clip of ex-Vice President Al Gore from his speech and movie "An Inconvenient Truth". I soon realized that Oliver's speech about obesity would be somewhat like Gore's speech about global warming.

Oliver began his presentation with a startling statistic that within the eighteen minutes of the presentation four Americans would die because of the food that they eat. Was the problem of obesity that prominent? Oliver continued to state that because of the food that is fed to the youth of this country, they will live lives ten years younger than their parents. One of the most shocking statistics of the presentation came when Oliver showed a graph of the leading causes of death in the United States. Four of the top six causes of death in the United States were food/diet related diseases. It's gotten to the point that obesity costs ten percent of America's health care bills. One hundred and fifty billion dollars a year on obesity alone.

Oliver really made an impact when he began giving examples of people he met in Huntington, West Virginia. At the time, West Virginia was the most unhealthiest state in America. Oliver presented a picture of a young girl he met named Brittany. Brittany is sixteen years old and because of the food she has eaten only has six years to live. Oliver continued to present other people who are affected by obesity. He even presented people who are not obese, but have been affected by the death of family members who were. Oliver believes that it can be completely preventable.

To prevent obesity, Oliver believes we must understand what it is that we are doing wrong. He describes that the problem is originating from three pieces of a triangle, which includes homes, schools, and main street, or companies. The problems with main street include bad labeling and an increase in sugars and processed foods. In the home, the main problem is that parents and grandparents have stopped teaching children how to cook healthy nutritional food. Finally, in schools the problem is that there isn't any people who are knowledgeable enough about food to make the right decisions for what to feed the students. Another problem is that there is no food education. Oliver showed a video of himself asking young children to identify some fruits and vegetables. It surprised me that none of the children knew what a tomato, potato, or cabbage was. What could be done to fix all of these problems?

Oliver continued by giving his plan for how to fix these terrible problems. He believes that the only way to make a real change is to fix all of the problems at once. First, supermarkets should contain a "food ambassador" who can help people shop and teach how to cook cheap and nutritional dishes. Big food brands must help with food education. Not only with young children in schools, but also with adults. Fast food chains need to slowly, but surely take out the sugar and processed food from out diets. In schools, children need to be given more fresh and nutritional dishes. Also, children need to be taught how to cook nutritional foods. Finally in the home, cooking should continue to be passed on through generations. In Huntington, West Virginia, Oliver opened "Huntington's Kitchen", a place where people come together to learn and teach how to cook for free. With such places as Huntington's Kitchen, Oliver believes that together we can begin to fix the problem that America and the entire world is facing today.

Skid Row

Skid Row, Los Angeles, California is one of the most impoverished cities in the United States. It is located in Downtown, Los Angeles. It contains one of the largest populations of homelessness in the country. Skid Row was known to have its side walks riddled with cardboard boxes and camping tents for shelter. Broken down buildings and drug dealers were also a common site. Through much effort from different organizations and political reforms, Skid Row has been cleaned up a bit. The streets seem much cleaner than they once were, but for how long.

In class we watched the short documentary about the impoverished city of Skid Row. Fact after fact, the narrator surprised the entire class as we learned about the desolate area. I stared in shock at the amount of people living on the streets. I was even more surprised to hear the statistic for the average age of a homeless person. Nine years old. Skid Row was and is a very serious problem in our society. I wondered how such a problem could have been created. I suppose the city's location made it economically unstable for those trying to reside there. Maybe it's residents were unable to keep up with payments. The bulk of the population there became homeless. Soon after more homeless people began settling there as well. As the city constructed a few homes for the homeless, even more migrated to Skid Row. Although the city did it's best effort, it proved not to be enough. More had to be done.

After Skid Row received more exposure, more was done to fix it. Organizations were made to assist the homeless. The mayor ordered the hiring of more police officers to patrol the streets of Skid Row. The increase in law enforcement helped decrease the presence of drugs on the streets. It also removed most of the people living on the side walks, but where would they go? The mayor along with a few organizations built new facilities for the homeless. Shelters and government paid housing were made. The shelters provide programs from education to rehab. The government paid housing helped put many people into more stable homes. With further improvement Skid Row may one day be able to remove it's undesirable name and become it's own thriving city.