Yesterday, Education News published a critical opinion piece by school food reformer Dana Woldow regarding Jamie Oliver’s recent foray into education reform. (Oliver has a reality show now airing in Britain called Dream School in which the celebrity chef attempts to inspire a class of teenaged drop-outs.) Of more relevance to Lunch Tray readers, however, is that Woldow also takes issue with Jamie Oliver’s much-watched, Emmy-winning Food Revolution series, season two of which premieres on April 12th
In season one of Food Revolution, which many of you no doubt watched, Oliver visited Huntington, West Virginia (allegedly the fattest city in America) and attempted to teach healthful eating to its citizenry as well as improve its school food. Dana, however, who has worked on the ground for almost a decade to reform school food in San Francisco, was unimpressed with Oliver’s efforts:
He [attempted to reform school food] not by railing against government underfunding of the school meal program – which might be boring – but by shaming the lunch ladies. He didn’t bother explaining that school meal programs which violate any of the myriad complex USDA regulations can lose their government funding, while still being required to feed low income students – which would be boring – but instead attacked the school nutrition director. And he never revealed that the school’s cafeteria budget couldn’t cover the cost of his healthier menu – because it was expensive, requiring both extra labor and higher priced ingredients – so the TV production company just quietly paid those costs.
But what did that prove – that someone operating completely outside the constraints of a regular school meal program (financial, regulatory, and social) can do things differently than someone who is forced to stay on budget and follow the rules?
I don’t disagree with these criticisms. As I noted in my own recent post on Oliver’s latest doings, JO did unfairly vilify the Huntington “lunch ladies” for the sake of reality TV drama, as these women are low-level employees with no say in the menus they prepare each day. And I agree with Dana that it’s wrong for Oliver to leave viewers with the impression that his fresh, appealing lunches could be prepared as cheaply as the chicken nuggets and fries he replaced. That creates false expectations among parents and district administrators that don’t do anyone any good.
On the other hand, as I also noted in my JO post, I do tend to overlook some of Oliver’s shtick — and questionable tactics — when I consider how much valuable attention he’s drawn to critically important issues like childhood obesity and diabetes, our nation’s over-processed diet and the abysmal state of school food in many places in the U.S. I’m just not sure he would have achieved the same high ratings with a measured, PBS-style documentary on the topic.
In other words, maybe to get a nationwide school reform omelette cooking, you have to break some (powdered) eggs . . . .
I won’t give away the excellent conclusion to Dana’s piece, with which I wholeheartedly agree. You’ll just have to head over to Education News to read it yourself. :-)
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I agree with you. His methods are questionable and unrealistic to most activists, but his show changed thousands of Americans lives who now cook real food every day and make better choices whenever they’re available. He raised awareness on an issue that people like me had never heard of. He changed my life, and he’s still my hero. I’m so grateful Seacrest believed in him and gave him this show. I’ll never be the same.
This cracks me up! During his first season of this show, the dietitian world was PISSED OFF–which frankly surprised me a little bit because I thought-major publicity for improving child and family nutrition..how could dietitians think that was a bad thing? But it was the manner in which he presented it, as you (and/or Dana) also pointed out here. He didn’t explain the realities of the NSLP and so much of the show was obviously staged..but I still stand by my initial feelings-if this is what it takes to bring attention to the cause, so be it-because Lord knows the rest of us have been shouting about it for decade(s) and progress had been moving at a snails pace, which was so frustrating. BTW, I love that you posted this-and the link to Dana’s article. You do such a good job of balancing all perspectives.
Obviously that moron did not watch the series. Time and again he ran into the stupid requirements, including the requirement to provide flavored, sugar loaded milks because the powers that be felt bad milk was better than the students not drinking milk at all. In addition, he did not make the lunch ladies look bad, their insistence in clinging to ignorance is what made them look bad. Once they shut up for 2 seconds and worked with him, things turned around.
Dana Woldrow’s real issue is obvious. After “almost a decade” Dana is obviously a dismal failure and is now looking for excuses. At the same time, Jamie has made improvements that were allowed within the constraints and gotten parents educated and involved in working to fight to remove those constraints.
Kayley: You clearly think Jamie Oliver was effective in Huntington, and that’s fine. But as for Dana Woldow, in fact she’s been phenomenally successful in turning around the food in SFUSD, along with other dedicated parents. During her 9-year tenure as an activist, vending machine sodas were banned, junk food fundraisers were banned, a la carte offerings no longer included junk food, and the federally subsidized meals were also greatly improved. She would be the first to tell you, however, that such changes couldn’t have happened without the financial support of the school district, which contributes $2 million a year to subsidize these improvements. And that’s where JO might be misleading people – could he have served those improved meals on the same $1 per meal that most districts are able to spend on food, after overhead?
WIth respect to the tone of your comment, I pride myself on the fact that TLT is and always has been a safe space to air all viewpoints, and when I and my readers disagree with each other, we always do so in a civil, respectful manner. In the almost one year I’ve been doing this, I’ve never had to censor a reader comment and I won’t start now. That said, I’d appreciate it if you’d tone down the ad hominem attacks if you want to comment here again – words like “moron” have no place here.
@Kayley, before you go bashing Dana, take a look at the progress that her tireless advocacy has accomplished in the SanFrancisco area.
Like Dana, I have been working 10+ years on this issue and am far from done. You would probably call me a “dismal failure” too. I was kicked out of my kids school cafeteria long before Mr. Oliver became a household word here in the US.
Jamie may have his heart in the right place, but at the end of the day, its a reality TV show. It can only do so much.
This work is not for wimps and no one, not even Jamie O, can clean up school food overnight.
Hopefully the 2nd season of his show will inspire more parents to get up off the couch and do something to change the train wreck in their kid’s cafeterias. I believe change will only come from the ground up.
As a parent who, only months before the season one of Food Rev aired, discovered that food in schools is indeed a train wreck, and had already resolved to do something about it, i was left inspired and hopeful at the end of the season. BUT i was also left with a lot more questions than answers .
I wondered where the funds were coming from to pay for the better ingredients, I expected this information would be shared in future episodes but it wasn’t. I wondered why jamie was successful at nixing choco milk and so many districts hadn’t. the nix of flavored milk turned out to be temporary.
at the end of the season, following his newsletter and website campaign, parents, who were now motivated to take action, were promised tool kits to make change. but again, there were too many questions like “where do i start, what is feasible in my district, why did the chocolate milk come back and why is it so hard to get it off the menu (i know the answer to that now), why are there so many excuses and not enough nourishing food for kids, why does it have to take a decade or three to make a few menu reform changes?
If I’d connected sooner with Susan Rubin and Dana Woldow my attempts would have born more fruit in year 1.
So, Jamie is great for bringing awareness to the fact that anyone who feeds kids needs to get it right, and our nation needs that, even if it is in reality TV format. But, those advocates who have been in the trenches and know what the obstacles are to better school food, those are the folks who can really get a motivated parent on the path to meaningful change in how schools (the gov really) feed kids.
I’d like to see JO and his Food Rev team point the motivated community that he’s generated to resources like PEACHSF and Better School Food. Each motivated parent needs a roadmap of what to do once they get bitten by the better food-for-kids bug.
Granted, it’s been a while since I watched the show, but I thought he did say that his show was funding the extra cost. Then I thought he approached a local business (hospital?) asking them to help fund the healthier foods… I certainly wasn’t left thinking that the school system could fund the changes on its own. I *was* a little offended at the suggestion that kids who bring their own lunch almost always bring crappier food than the school supplies.
I don’t think anyone has ever claimed that Jamie Oliver presented a realistic view of school-food reform. So I don’t quite get the angst that some people have about this. It’s a reality TV show, not a documentary, so by that very definition it’s as much entertainment as it is information.
That said, it’s worth going back and reading Kate Adamick’s real-time coverage of the series for the Atlantic last year: http://www.theatlantic.com/kate-adamick. Among other things, she addressed the complaints from grassroots reformers that they — not Jamie Oliver — should be getting attention and credit: “Those of us who are truly concerned about the welfare of America’s children, health care system, and food supply should be grateful that long-awaited and much-needed attention to what has become at best a national embarrassment, and at worst a national crisis, has finally arrived.”
It seems to me that the complaints miss the big picture, which is that Jamie Oliver has single-handedly brought more attention to kids and food than any other person or organization ever. And in record time. And to a mass, mainstream audience.
Is he splashy? Is the show staged? Are the solutions oversimplified? Sure. But who cares? If it’s gotten people angry and ready to act, then that’s pretty impressive.
Remember, too, that this isn’t just about *school* food reform. Most of our food problems start at home, not in school. And I have heard from countless people who tell me they were inspired to change their family’s food habits after watching the first Food Revolution. So I dunno. Seems that increased food IQ counts for an awful lot.
Believe me, I would love to see Jamie chase down bureaucrats a la Michael Moore. (Really. I’d love that.) But, in the meantime, I’ll take the increased awareness. Even if it comes with glitz.
Well, Christina, I disagree. The vast majority of people in this country know nothing about the school meal program or how it operates, and while it is great that, thanks to this show, some of them are now aware of problems they may not have known existed, I think that many of them also believe that Jamie’s approach to fixing school food is a realistic one. He certainly never said anything that would make them think otherwise.
As you can see from Kayley’s remarks above (and her belief is typical of the dozens of people I have spoken with who watched the show last year), many viewers believe that what they saw was that Jamie “made improvements within the constraints.” The reality is he did no such thing. He spent more money on his meals than the school district could spend, and brought in more (and better skilled) labor than the school district could afford – in fact, he basically opened a branch of one of his restaurants in a high school – which is in no way working “within the constraints.” So what does that prove – that someone with limitless money who can ignore the regulations can serve better food than a school district which has to stay on budget and follow the regs?
I get it that JO has brought more attention to the school food issue, but it is so often the wrong kind of attention, the kind that seeks to blame those lowest on the food chain – the cafeteria ladies, the local schools, the local nutrition director – for problems which are coming from the top – the criminally low Federal funding that forces schools to rely on cheap processed food; the thicket of government regulation which must be followed no matter how senseless, and hoops which must be jumped through to get the pitifully low reimbursement; the lack of ongoing Federal funds to pay for equipment repair or kitchen renovation, forcing schools to rely on preprocessed food instead of scratch cooking, unless they can pass the hat locally to pay for a central kitchen to cook fresh meals.
How does it help when viewers are encouraged to blame the people who have no say at all over the program, but who are forced to operate within the constraints of the program?
I’ve been doing the ‘fix school food’ thing for many years, and I’ve never met anyone in the movement who is there because they expect to get praise or glory, or even thanks. Many of us don’t even get paid. We do it because of the kids, because we want better health for them, and schools have an important role to play in that.
It is fashionable these days to portray schools and teachers as the root of all evil, and JO plays right into that. I don’t see why school-bashing has to be part of this entertainment package. The idea that it is okay because at least it gets people angry and ready to act is more than a little scary, as it conjures up images of the townsfolk storming the local school with their pitchforks and flaming torches; meanwhile, the villain is in Washington DC taking 6 cents from food stamps to fund 64 cents worth of new requirements for the schools.
Dana: Yikes, no one said that people get into school food reform for the glory. (And if anyone does, then order a head exam, stat.) What Kate Adamick was addressing were frustrations from colleagues that JO was getting credit for something (raising awareness about “the catastrophe that is school food”) that grassroots reformers had been working on for years.
Maybe I watched the show more closely than most people. And, granted, I have more knowledge about this stuff than the average viewer, so maybe I filled in blanks on my own. (And was more attuned when talk of reimbursements and bureaucracy came up. Which it did.) But I just didn’t walk away with the same impression.
It’s so interesting the different perspectives here, because, to me, the show was not about school-bashing. It was about the travesty of what we feed our kids at every turn. Which is why I maintain that we also need to look at the influence the show had on personal food habits.
Getting angry and motivated to act is not about townsfolk arming themselves with pitchforks and storming the local school — it’s about parents arming themselves with information and taking control of the food they and their kids eat. Maybe they buy more whole foods or read ingredients or join a school wellness committee or give up fast food or advocate for legislative change. However it manifests, it’s about individual efforts to change the status quo.
Bettina, while this is a controversial topic… I just have to laugh at your comment: “In other words, maybe to get a nationwide school reform omelets cooking, you have to break some (powdered) eggs . . . .”
As for JO, it is reality TV. Not a documentary. However, most of America believes that reality TV is real, unscripted and not subsidized by the network. (Spoiler alert: reality TV is scripted!!)
Is JO doing a great job at sparking discussion about childhood obesity? Yes. Does he get under the skin of most food service professionals in Child Nutrition (and those who work tirelessly as volunteers to support their local wellness initiatives)? Yes!
I think my biggest issue with the guy is the way he “bends” the truth to get the most drama out of it. Most people don’t know the first thing about school food, so they just accept what he says as true. He’s charming and has a very attractive foreign accent. Why would he lie to us?
I think Dana has done wonders for her district and is leading the nation into a new era of school food reform. Nine years of dedication (with more criticism than praise, I’m sure) makes one a revolutionary. Unfortunately slow steady progress and changes to a national health crisis doesn’t bring in good TV ratings. (but does bring in great ratings for food bloggers who feature her guest blogs and interviews!)
I’ll take JO with a grain of salt. I may not like him, or how he belittles my colleagues and employees… but I’ll accept whatever gets us all talking about the childhood obesity epidemic and ways to turn our nation around.
Welcome back, Wilma! So glad you’re commenting on this topic, and very well put.. (For new TLT readers, Wilma is an anonymous school food professional somewhere in the US who occasionally helps me out with her valuable perspective from “behind the lunch line.”)
My biggest gripe is about the way JO portrays the schools as being the stumbling block, rather than the lack of funding. My fear is that the new series will focus even more on JO’s party line that the schools are “the bad guys” and “getting away with murder”, which really does not promote any kind of constructive dialog between parents and their school nutrition director.
Perhaps my fears are unfounded; perhaps he will not bash the LAUSD and will rightly trace the root of the problem back to Federal underfunding of the school meal program. No one would be happier than I to see him do that.
But we don’t need to speculate on what JO will do or say – the show begins tomorrow night (Tuesday). What say we all meet up back here on Wednesday to discuss what happened in the first show? What do you say, Bettina? Want to host a JO food revolution group discussion?
Ack, Dana — you scooped me! I was going to propose that very idea in a post tomorrow! Great minds and all that . . . Absolutely want to talk JO with TLT readers. I’ll still post as planned tomorrow so everyone remembers to tune in or set the DVR.
I have a different perspective on Jamie Oliver: I think he shows what perseverance and passion can accomplish. When he’s stymied by an obstacle, he manages to find a way around it or through it. His passion for the effects of bad food policy–both individually and collectively–and offering an alternative is highly commendable and contagious.
Yes, he employs dramatic and exaggerated editing in his show. Yes, is sometimes annoying and naive/ignorant of American culture. Yes, he didn’t understand the leverage he gave up by enrolling his children in a private school.
Re: ratings: I’d like to think that there is room “on the dial” for passionate, idealistic programs. It is certainly anti-establishment: There is a lot of money around keeping the status quo, and local farmers don’t have an industry mouth-piece to make their case. I hope JO stays on the air just to give us wacky leftists hope that change can happen.
Toby, from one wacky leftist to another
, I like JO for all the reasons you do. But I also agree with Dana’s point that his efforts don’t always seem focused in the right direction, maybe because it wouldn’t make as good television viewing. At any rate, thanks for commenting here!
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