WV Has Fattest City in the Nation????

Last night I was being my normal Sunday night bum.  This is a time when my wife, Diana, and I tend to sit down and “Vegge Out” while we get ready for the upcoming workweek.  We watched the end of Desperate House Wives and flipped back and forth to CNN and MSNBC to watch the upcoming vote on the National Health Care Reform. 

If you had asked me about 9 pm, I would have told you that I was going to write about the National Health Care Reform… but then it happened.  ABC ran a Premier of a new show about this chef who has come to America from England and he is determined to try to change America’s eating habits.  He is going to start at the fattest town in one of the fattest states… Yes… Huntington WV. 

I was shocked that it was about Huntington.  Aware that WV has it’s problems with obesity and disability I was shocked to learn that we had a city in 1^st place.  I had heard that the worst of the worst was a few cities in Texas and one in Wisconsin.  It turns out in most of the previous studies they never considered cities with populations under 100,000 but now they were looking to include smaller cities and they included anything over 50,000 and that put WV on top of the Map.

So in case you think I’m crazy, here’s the link: http://abc.go.com/shows/jamie-olivers-food-revolution

Now, after sleeping on this, I have come to the following realization.  This is insane and this is unacceptable.  We must take our health back.  The present generation of children is the first generation that has a life expectancy that is SHORTER than their parents because of obesity and related diabetes and heart disease and cancer!!!

In this show, central elementary in Huntington is serving pizza for breakfast 5 days a week.  All of the kids are drinking either chocolate or strawberry milk and the few kids eating cereal are dumping the flavored (loaded with sugar) over top of the cereal.

As I watched this in total horror (I don’t have any kids to know this first hand)… my wife, Diana, who teaches at Hollywood Elementary, she tells me that her school offers pizza for lunch everyday… I had NO IDEA!!!!  DID YOU????

So apparently at this Huntington school they seem to be focusing on pizza, French fries, mashed potatoes made from pellets and chicken nuggets… with healthy drinks of chocolate and strawberry milk.  Now Wonder Everyone is getting so fat!

I’m writing this more out of shock than anything else.  I learned that our schools have classified French fries as a vegetable and that they even give sugar laden dipping sauces with the chicken nuggets.

We need to take a stand and change the nutrition back to whole foods in our schools.  Kids are supposed to learn in school and just as schools teach reading, writing, and arithmetic; they must start teaching nutrition.  How can we expect kids to learn proper nutrition if they are fed pizza for breakfast everyday?

I recommend any of you who can to watch a little of this program.  The follow-up  episode is going to be on Friday, but you can watch it online anytime at http://abc.go.com/shows/jamie-olivers-food-revolution. 

Thanks so much for all of your support and if you like what your reading, pass on the link to this blog: http://jchipley.com.

Yours in good health,

Dr. Julian Chipley

P.S. In an earlier blog I told you all that I was going to make a major lifestyle change myself at the start of the year.  I have lost 16 pounds since January 1^st.  I have 9 pounds to go to hit my goal.  It is getting harder and while exercise does help (jogging and lifting light weights for me), watching what I am eating is a major part of this weight loss and this is why I am in such shock of the school systems food choices.

Comments

[Kelly]

Great blog!
The link posted is only a sneak peek for now, but it does give insight to what the show will be like. The full episode plus a new one will air Friday, March 26 at 8pm and 9pm respectively. If you find another link for the full episode, please post it, as I missed it last night!

[Dr. Chipley]

You Should be able to get to the full episode by cliking or copying and pasteing this link in your browser: http://abc.go.com/watch/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/250784/254757/episode-101

It is worth watching.