A healthy eating promotion with the taste of success

You’ve got to feel a bit sorry for TV chef and celebrated geezer Jamie Oliver.

His heart is in the right place by attempting to promote healthy diets but his new show has clearly upset some of the good people of Rotherham.

And pardon the pun but the recipe for PR fall-out was there all along. Take an aspirational Southern do-gooder, throw in an expose of unhealthy eating habits in a northern town, mix with the perception of being lectured to, and hey presto, angry community representatives.

I’m sure Jamie will survive and continue to do good work, even if that northern sage Michael Parkinson thought it was all a bit exploitative when speaking on the Andrew Marr show.

For an example of a local health promotion that worked and was non-controversial, go no further than Sandwell in the West Midlands. In an initiative called Eatwell, partners including the local primary care trust identified all the homes that were more than ten minutes from a supermarket by public transport or on foot.

The partnership then looked at what shops there were in these spaces and encouraged them to stock fresh fruit and vegetables at affordable prices if they were not already doing so. The aim was to prevent so-called “fresh food deserts” where people have little or no access to health eating choices.

It was sensitively handled, promoted locally and as a result more than 40 retailers came on board to join the initiative. No-one got upset and it didn’t leave a bad taste in the mouth.