For immediate release: May 8, 2012
Boston, MA – Jamie Oliver, the internationally acclaimed chef of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, will be honored by Harvard School of Public Health for his substantial achievements in working to end the childhood obesity epidemic. Jamie Oliver has campaigned to provide schoolchildren in the U.S. and U.K. with whole, freshly cooked food and has inspired millions of people around the world to become passionate about preparing delicious meals from scratch.
Oliver will receive the School’s prestigious Healthy Cup Award at a sold-out lecture and reception at the Joseph P. Martin Conference Center, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston, MA at 4:30 PM ETMay 22, 2012.
The Healthy Cup Award event will feature talks by Oliver and Harvard School of Public Health nutrition expert Walter Willett, MD, DrPH.
About Jamie Oliver
Over the last 12 years, Jamie Oliver has made it his mission to educate people all around the world of the positive health benefits of real food and to influence parents, schools, and workplaces to replace processed meals with delicious, fresh food made from scratch. A food activist and chef, his television programs have been broadcast in more than 50 countries, including the United States, UK, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Japan, and Iceland. His cookbooks have been translated into more than 26 languages. Oliver’s 2010 and 2011 prime time ABC television series, “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” increased awareness of the obesity epidemic in the United States. The Emmy Award-winning program chronicled his efforts to transform school meals in Huntington, West Virginia and Los Angeles, California.
The award comes three days after the Jamie Oliver Foundation’s first Food Revolution Day, a series of events held throughout the U.S. designed to inspire people to use local, fresh foods and to promote the need for better food education.
About Walter Willett
Dr. Willett, chair of HSPH’s Department of Nutrition and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, is among the most cited researchers in medicine in the past decade. His work has influenced the diets of Americans in many ways, perhaps most strongly by documenting the harmful effects of trans fats and the benefits of unsaturated fats.
His work led the Food and Drug Administration to require that the amount of trans fat in foods be marked on the label. New York City banned trans fats, leading to a wave of change among the country’s biggest restaurant chains and food suppliers. He led the School’s efforts to build the Healthy Eating Pyramid, a guide to eating and staying active for optimum health, and the Healthy Plate, a simple tool to help Americans understand the most nutritious way to eat. Boston Public Schools and the City of Boston banned sugar-sweetened drinks as a result of research by Willett and others at HSPH about connections between sugar-sweetened drinks and increases in obesity and diabetes. His research and advocacy have influenced a nationwide move to reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.
About the Healthy Cup Award
The Healthy Cup Award is presented by Harvard School of Public Health’s Nutrition Round Table, a group that helps to bridge the gap between scientific advances and sustainable changes in food policy, practices, and products, with a focus on obesity, healthy lifestyles, global nutrition, and chronic diseases. Members include scientific experts, business leaders, restaurateurs, health educators and health care providers, writers, doctors, philanthropists, and concerned citizens.
The Nutrition Round Table bestows the Healthy Cup Award biannually to an individual or group that has made significant contributions to public health and nutrition through acts of good will, charity, leadership, innovation, policy change, or the vigorous promotion of a healthy lifestyle. Previous recipients include Senator Tom Harkin, for his leadership in putting wellness and health on the American agenda; Kenneth Cooper, the “father of aerobics” for influencing millions of Americans to exercise, and businessman Lee Iacocca, for his substantial efforts battling the spread of diabetes.
“Jamie Oliver has been a pioneer in health communication, bringing home the seriousness of the childhood obesity epidemic to an audience of millions. By advocating for change in school meals and for better education around healthy eating and cooking, Jamie Oliver is, on a large scale, battling this critical problem,” said Julio Frenk, dean of Harvard School of Public Health.
“I’m honored to receive the Healthy Cup Award this year,” said Jamie Oliver. “I’ve seen how the power of television can inspire people to make positive changes and I will continue to make programs and speak up about important food issues to rally the public.”
Jamie Oliver has become a crusader for better school food and food education in America. The Jamie Oliver Food Foundation (www.jamiesfoodrevolution.com) has been established in the United States to further the work that Oliver began with his television series.
For more information:
Elaine Grant
617.971.8845
egrant@hsph.harvard.edu
Todd Datz
617-432-8413
tdatz@hsph.harvard.edu
Visit the HSPH website for the latest news, press releases, and multimedia offerings.
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Harvard School of Public Health (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu) is dedicated to advancing the public’s health through learning, discovery, and communication. More than 400 faculty members are engaged in teaching and training the 1,000-plus student body in a broad spectrum of disciplines crucial to the health and well being of individuals and populations around the world. Programs and projects range from the molecular biology of AIDS vaccines to the epidemiology of cancer; from risk analysis to violence prevention; from maternal and children’s health to quality of care measurement; from health care management to international health and human rights. For more information on the school visit: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu.
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