One rather unexpected, yet extremely positive, side effect of my efforts to reconstruct my life, and particularly my health, at thirty, has been a passion that I’m developing for promoting healthier eating and living, particularly among the nation’s youth.  As a nation, we’ve got to stop ignoring food as a major contributor to our health outcomes, and realize that we really are what we eat!  Trash in, trash out.  It seems that a groundswell is building to begin seriously taking on these problems in a meaningful way.  Just a few weeks ago, we learned that First Lady Michelle Obama was making childhood obesity a keystone platform of her tenure.  This week, we received what is truly a National Nutrition Month® gift from celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and Ryan Seacrest Productions – the ABC series Food Revolution.

I truly want you to watch this show.  Truly.  ABC has put the first episode on Hulu, and I’ve embedded a link to the hulu video below (this video totally belongs to ABC, Ryan Seacrest Productions, Hulu, etc., and is totally here at their mercy.  I’m just embedding the Hulu version here pursuant to what Hulu allows in terms of sharing because I think this show is incredible, and I want you to watch it on ABC, visit the show’s various websites, and support this amazing program so it sticks around!).

Jamie’s passion, compassion, and genuine concern is so evident in this program.  He doesn’t think obese people are ignorant, stupid, or dumb.  He truly understands that we have to change our culture to change our collective eating habits, and our individual lives.  He’s beginning in Huntington, West Virginia, where he’s taking on families, restaurants, and perhaps most importantly (and entertainingly), a school cafeteria, where he uncovers the bureaucratic struggles that go into transforming school lunches in the United States, and the need to update our nutritional standards and norms. You can also sign a petition that Jamie is pulling together as part of his efforts to take these issues to the President and First Lady for support by clicking on this link.

Kudos to Jamie, who is the star of the show, but also to producer Ryan Seacrest and Ryan Seacrest Productions, for having the courage to take on these issues.  In the random ramblings category, Ryan Seacrest grew up only a few miles from me in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, and the local press has shown more than a few pictures of him as an overweight teenager.  I guess that’s part of why I personally have always found him pretty easy to relate to, and I’m very proud to see a formerly overweight kid from my part of the world doing well career-wise and making efforts to address our growing crisis of obesity.  There was a sneak peek of the first episode last night (but it was interrupted by an ABC News Special Report on the passage of the Health Care Reform Bill here in the east), and it slides into its regular Friday evening time slot on ABC later this week.  Hope you enjoy!