'Jamie Oliver approach' won't tackle obesity, warns health secretary

1st July 2010, 3:23pm

The health secretary has discredited the 'Jamie Oliver approach' to tackling public health problems and says responsibility for health must be placed back on the shoulders of individuals - says a report published by BBC News today.

Speaking at the British Medical Association conference in Brighton, Andrew Lansley said there must be an evidence-based approach to dealing with public health and an end to attempting to coerce people into living healthier lives. He has argued that the 'constant lecturing' had failed to have the right impact on the public.

The health secretary said: 'If we are constantly lecturing people and trying to tell them what to do, we will actually find that we undermine and are counterproductive in the results that we achieve."

The health secretary, who has pledged to rename the Department of Health the Department of Public Health added: "Jamie Oliver, quite rightly, was talking about trying to improve the diet of children in schools and improving school meals, but the net effect was the number of children eating school meals in many of these places didn't go up, it went down."

Jamie Oliver has accused the health minister of simplifying the issue for the sake of a headline stating: "Yes, people need government support to make key lifestyle changes to improve public health.

"What better way to show support than to invest in education so that all children can have compulsory cooking lessons and all adults can have access to a food centre which teaches core cooking skills and how to cook fresh, tasty, affordable and nutritious food?"

Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum added in the report: "The teething problems that school meals may still be going through have nothing to do with Jamie Oliver but the schools themselves. Oliver was unique in introducing the idea of giving our children healthy meals at school and the proof is that his system is working.

"From breakfast onwards research is showing that Oliver-style food is showing real benefits in terms of attention to learning and reduction of bad classroom behaviour. On top of which the children get fed properly. It would be lunacy to abandon that breakthough for a few schools that may not have got their act together yet."

Related Articles:

• 25 Nov 2011 - Jamie Oliver's fears over meal standards in free schools and academies
• 27 Sep 2010 - Flagship Fifteen restaurant gets a light makeover
• 14 Jul 2010 - Health Secretary's plan to scrap Food Standards Agency stalled
• 08 Jul 2010 - Family and friends have more influence on diet than the government, online healthy living survey reveals
• 29 Apr 2010 - School dinners campaigner, Jamie Oliver voted Brits’ favourite celebrity chef
• 19 Mar 2010 - Jamie Oliver joins forces with Edexcel to launch cookery course
• 04 Jan 2010 - Jamie Oliver wins TED prize for “transforming children’s food”
• 12 Nov 2009 - Jamie Oliver's pasta sauces contain too much salt, says CASH

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