Why I don't watch reality shows
A great analysis of the problems with Jaime Oliver's reality show:
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2011/01/get-off.html#disqus_thread
He catches, and shames, a woman for having prepared affordable processed food for her child rather than the expensive "healthier" recipe he'd provided. He mournfully tells her, "I just don't understand." After the woman had paid her bills and bus fare (to get to work and the grocery store) she didn't have enough money for the expensive ingredients he'd told her to buy. He still didn't get it.
Melissa McEwan points out the problems of blaming individuals for systemic problems. This is a hot-button issue for me. I am disgusted by the way weight is seen as moral failing. Heck, in most cases it's not even a genuine health issue, and when it is, the problem is rarely just "laziness" or "ignorance."
Full disclosure: I am 5'6" and weigh 145 pounds. I am also a cancer survivor, and am aware of popular pseudo-science that tries to blame cancer on obesity. (Pseudo-science and cancer might need to be another post.)
But the situation here is the link between obesity and poverty. Fruits and vegetables are expensive, more so in poorer neighborhoods where people frequently don't have their own transportation. If you have limited financial resources, you can actually stretch your food dollars farther and feed more people in your family for longer if you buy cheaper pre-processed and so called unhealthy foods. This can lead to obesity, which is still healthier than starvation. If Jaime Oliver seriously wants to address the problem of obesity in poor neighborhoods, he should focus on getting affordable fruits and vegetables into the stores, better public transportation so people can get to better stores, breaking inner city monopolies, and increasing the money poor people have to buy food. (WIC provides $6.00 a month for fruits and vegetables.)
If he doesn't want to do this, then he can at least refrain from treating those of a different social class and size as inferior.
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2011/01/get-off.html#disqus_thread
He catches, and shames, a woman for having prepared affordable processed food for her child rather than the expensive "healthier" recipe he'd provided. He mournfully tells her, "I just don't understand." After the woman had paid her bills and bus fare (to get to work and the grocery store) she didn't have enough money for the expensive ingredients he'd told her to buy. He still didn't get it.
Melissa McEwan points out the problems of blaming individuals for systemic problems. This is a hot-button issue for me. I am disgusted by the way weight is seen as moral failing. Heck, in most cases it's not even a genuine health issue, and when it is, the problem is rarely just "laziness" or "ignorance."
Full disclosure: I am 5'6" and weigh 145 pounds. I am also a cancer survivor, and am aware of popular pseudo-science that tries to blame cancer on obesity. (Pseudo-science and cancer might need to be another post.)
But the situation here is the link between obesity and poverty. Fruits and vegetables are expensive, more so in poorer neighborhoods where people frequently don't have their own transportation. If you have limited financial resources, you can actually stretch your food dollars farther and feed more people in your family for longer if you buy cheaper pre-processed and so called unhealthy foods. This can lead to obesity, which is still healthier than starvation. If Jaime Oliver seriously wants to address the problem of obesity in poor neighborhoods, he should focus on getting affordable fruits and vegetables into the stores, better public transportation so people can get to better stores, breaking inner city monopolies, and increasing the money poor people have to buy food. (WIC provides $6.00 a month for fruits and vegetables.)
If he doesn't want to do this, then he can at least refrain from treating those of a different social class and size as inferior.