JAMIE OLIVER

Some of the media has named Jamie Oliver a megastar, but he doesn’t earn a living from singing, acting, or professional sports. He is a chef, but he is not an ordinary one. He hit the scene in 1998 when he started his television series and then published his book The Naked Chef. The 33-year-old chef is married with two girls. He writes articles in newspapers, in addition to his cooking programs and books, because he wants to teach people about nutrition. What makes him different is his mission of encouraging a healthy diet for everyone.

With the rising rates of obesity and diabetes even in little children, he started a campaign at schools after meeting the Prime Minister Tony Blair. The School Food Trust, whose aim was to replace fast food with hot lunches, was born. Its motto was ‘Eat better, do better.’ They wanted to change schoolchildren’s eating habits. For three years they have tried to make the students eat freshly cooked vegetables instead of fried food. Meanwhile, they also train school kitchen staff how to cook healthily.

The young and devoted chef says, “What we eat affects everything: our mood, behaviour, health, growth, even our ability to concentrate.” In other words, he claimed that when they changed their eating habits, it could also help in their academic success. After the beginning of his campaign, the research on the school children proved his claims. There wasn’t a single day in the newspapers and on TV that his campaign wasn’t discussed. More than 100,000 people have signed an online petition supporting his campaign for better school food. After once appearing on Oprah, 7.5 million people tuned in to watch his show. Now, he is a megastar chef that is known worldwide.

Unfortunately, his campaign did not end as successfully as it started. He admits that his campaign has been a failure because poor people still think that eating healthy is a privilege of the middle class or wealthy people, and not theirs. The poor still think this although Jamie has proven the opposite in his programs. However, he is not quitting his mission of healthy nutrition and now he is on the edge of a new campaign about cutting the intake of sugar in society.