I am not the kind of girl that watches television--in fact, I've never owned one until I moved in with Guido, and we only used our basic cable once to watch the World Cup (Hey, I'm in Italy, what can I say?). So, thank goodness for airline entertainment. I was fortunate enough to watch the Food Revolution while traveling over the Atlantic on the way back from the United States. After watching the forty-minute pilot episode, I was totally inspired and moved by Jamie's mission to transform the unhealthy eating habits in the United States. Now this is the kind of television I can get behind.
Here's the premise of the show: Jamie travels to Huntington, West Virgina (population 50,000), recently named the unhealthiest city in America because of its high rate of obesity-related deaths. A 2008 report from the Center for Disease Control reported the following facts on Huntington: 45.5% of the residents over 20 were overweight (that's half!), 21.6% of those over 45 reported a diagnosis of coronary heart disease, and 13% of those over 18 had diabetes (the national rate is 7.8%). Jamie's goal is to try to get the residents to change their addiction to fast and unhealthy food and show them that with just a little extra effort their lives can be healthier and much, much longer.
