Jamie Oliver and his food revolution returns to TLC
MANILA, Philippines – Jamie Oliver wants to start a revolution in America – a food revolution, that is. The ever-popular British TV personality, author, chef, and now activist, returns to TLC this December with a brand-new season of his Emmy® award-winning series, JAMIE OLIVER’S FOOD REVOLUTION, where he takes on an issue that is close to his heart…nutritional food. Jamie is on a mission to change the way America eats, but can he persuade Americans to swap their greasy hamburgers for healthy home-cooked food? Follow Jamie on his quest every Thursday at 7:00 p.m., starting December 12 to see how he fares. Encores are every Friday at 10:00 a.m., Saturday at 5:00 p.m. and Sunday at 8:00 a.m.
Jamie is determined to tackle the high statistics of obesity, heart disease and diabetes in America, where the country’s children are the first generation not expected to live as long as their parents. Among the most populated countries in the world, America had the world’s highest number of overweight and obese people, with more than 119 million overweight people or an obesity rate of 31.8% of its population. It only lost its dubious honour in 2013 after the United Nations reported that Mexico had overtaken it, but not by much. According to the World Health Organisation[1], more than 40 million children under the age of five were overweight in 2011. Being overweight and obese are in fact linked to more deaths worldwide than underweight.
In season one, Jamie headed to Huntington, West Virginia – named by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the unhealthiest city in America – to start his healthy cooking initiative. Nearly half of the adults in Huntington are considered obese, and incidents of heart disease and diabetes there lead the nation. He battled naysayers and resistance, challenging ingrained unhealthy habits, the sorry state of school food and their rising obesity rates head on. There he made the case that French fries weren’t vegetables, worked with “lunch ladies” at a local school, and visited a funeral home to show what plus-sized caskets looked like.
With the success of Huntington behind him and as a template for better eating, Jamie’s raising the stakes. In JAMIE OLIVER’S FOOD REVOLUTION 2, the crusading chef brings his message to the nation’s second largest city – Los Angeles (L.A.), California – where he is faced with his biggest challenge yet: to revolutionise the school lunches and family meals in L.A. He tries to teach students about the consequences of eating unhealthy foods and wages war on flavoured milk, but faces huge challenges gaining access to the schools when the L.A. Unified School District blocks him every step of the way. He also works with a local fast food restaurant to revamp its menu.
Can the passionate chef win the hearts, minds – and most importantly, the stomachs – of the local Angelenos? Or will the obstacles prove too much to overcome? Find out on this thought-provoking and inspiring series that will change the way you look at food.
Produced by Jamie’s Fresh One Productions and Ryan Seacrest Productions, this six-part series has not only been nominated twice for “Outstanding Reality Programme” at the Emmy’s (winning once), it was also a recipient of the Television Academy Honors in 2011 for exemplifying “television with a conscience” and demonstrating how a show can create movement and significantly improve peoples’ lives and attitudes.
The Food Revolution campaign has made an impact in the United States with over 800,000 signatures on the official petition, and has attracted support from celebrities including Jennifer Aniston, Ricky Gervais, Queen Raina and Oprah Winfrey.
