On a weekend where The Green Party laid out its vision for NZ, I came across an article in the “Weekend” magazine section of the Press about junk food, schools and kids eating poorly. The article, by Paul Christensen (I’ll try and get a link to it), reports on concerns about child obesity and how some schools are taking action by growing and cooking their own food.

As Russel Norman noted in his address to the Green Party,

“There are 20,000 New Zealand children going to school each day without food, or shoes or raincoats”

This is a major issue facing NZ. Poor health and nutrition impacts hugely on the ability to learn and on general outcomes in life. As Jamie Oliver has shown with his Food Revolution, starting early in schools can change behaviour before it becomes embedded and beyond repair. The Sustainable Kids Programme has been a real winner so far but we need more of this. Sadly the National Party over turned a previous policy on health eating in schools. It’s these types of programmes that are being slowly squeezed in the name of cutting spending. This is the classic mistake many governments make when trying to cut costs….they don’t realise that this ends up costing us all more in the long run.

We should be investing hugely in our children. In an employment constrained world, in an outsourced world, in a world of highly competitive manufacturing, we need our people to be as well as possible. They are our future. If we are going to develop a hi-tech, productive and efficient economic system then we need smart kids with good habits and a good understanding of how systems work. Food and nutrition is a perfect example of where this kind of learning can come from. If you ever seen the faces on children who have grown their own food and then cooked and eaten it then you will know what I am talking about.

We are in severe need of new jobs. Well here is a start: get every school a food and nutrition specialist, with a garden alongside. Make it a core part of the curriculum. It’s as important as P.E. (if not more important according to research). I would love to see all schools with a canteen, cooking and supplying a healthy lunchtime meal. For some children this may be the most important meal of the day. Now imagine how many jobs that could generate (with 2000 primary and secondary schools in the country).

The main argument against this approach has been of interfering in what should be a parental responsibility and also taking away to choice to eat crap, unhealthy food. Well my response to that would be to argue that schools have the advantage of scale: they can teach many kids at once. Scale is the pathway to efficiency. The most efficient way to get healthy eating into our society is through our schools and our children. They children will then take that back home and slowly change will take place.

It’s this type of vision that we need to see. Hopefully the Green Party will be the ones to bring it to the Parliamentary table.

Jamie Oliver is a machine….he is one mad food revolutionary. His results from food change programmes in the UK have been tested and shown to raise educational standards….intuitively we know this but it’s very affriming to have some research to back it up.

Now he is taking his personal brand of straight talking to the heart of America’s chronic food related problem, Huntington, West Virginia. This five county metropolitan area was designated as the unhealthiest city in the nation. Nearly half the adults in the area are obese with heart and diabetes problems running alongside.

It’s tough love all the way from the Essex Crusader who keeps giving us the harsh cold truth: crap in, crap out.

Maybe we need him down here in NZ….