Jamie Oliver: My wish ... is for you to help a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food.
(Music)
To inspire families to cook again and to empower people everywhere to fight obesity. I came here to start a food revolution that I profoundly believe in.
(Applause)
[Great Big Story in partnership with TED]
Narrator: They had a big idea to change the world. But they couldn't do it alone.
(Voices overlapping) So, my wish ... My wish ... I wish ...
And now here's my wish.
[Torchbearers]
[Ideas in action]
(Knife chop)
(Music)
JO: Food is simple. It's just raw ingredients. But it's the most powerful killer on the planet. Every child has the human right to be taught about food: where it comes from, how it affects their body. And they should be shown at school, because it's at the front line of the fight against obesity.
[London, England]
[Charlton Manor Primary School]
What happens at Charlton Manor is that incredible head teacher took it to the next level.
[Timothy Baker Head teacher]
Timothy Baker: In the past, the children weren't eating the right things. I've been inspired by Jamie to educate this school about the fact that we're feeding the children the wrong food. And I thought, well, the timetable is an already crowded place -- there are so many lessons in the primary curriculum. How can you introduce another subject for teachers to teach? So we looked at English, we looked at maths, science, history, geography and we saw how we could put that around food.
(Children laugh)
Elizabeth: When you incorporate cooking, it's something everyone looks forward to.
Male teacher: Today we're doing a little bit of science in the kitchen.
Female teacher: We are going to combine our lessons on Diwali, but also our lessons on shape and symmetry.
Male teacher: Is this a physical change or a chemical change?
Children: Physical!
Male teacher: You're right.
TB: For history topics, we talk about the history of chocolate, and so we can do a whole topic around that.
Male teacher: And the Aztecs have been cooking with chocolate --
TB: And it's interesting because it's not made as they think, with all the milk in that they would have had -- and the taste is very, very different. Some children like it; some children don't.
(Laughter)
For maths, simple weighing and measuring.
Female teacher: We're going to be doing a lot of measuring because we have to measure out some liquids, which we did last term, we did some measuring.
JO: What he's done is he's put food at the heart of the school, and he's fed the stomach and the mind.
(Children yell excitedly)
TB: Charlton Manor is a state school. About 80 percent of children come from areas that are identified as in poverty. The children had very little experience of being outside in the countryside, knowing about food-growing. Over a period of time, we were able to build a garden.
(Children shout)
Students: Welcome to the Secret Garden!
Kehinde: This is our greenhouse. This is our compost bin. This is our wormery.
(Music)
This is our vegetable patch. And these are our chickens.
Sean: The chickens come out, and they try and chase you. I had to run for my life.
TB: Up at the community garden, we've got two polytunnels so we can grow year-round.
Sean: I will pick onions, broccoli and carrots because they're all healthy, they make you stronger -- obviously -- and they just make me happy. So, yeah.
(Birds chirp)
TB: 12 or 13 years ago, there was a reluctance to engage in this sort of curriculum. There were many people that couldn't see what we were aiming for and what we were trying to do. Obesity hadn't reached the epidemic proportions it has reached now. We're getting children that look and appear more healthy. Concentration is so much higher. Behavior issues are incredibly lower than they have been in the past. Elizabeth: One the of the great things they've done is introduce us to worlds of healthy food.
Kehinde: Before, I was a really picky eater.
Sean: I feel better when I eat healthier food.
TB: When you fail your maths A level, that's not going to shorten your life by 10 years.
JO: You don't die young because you didn't do your geography homework. These kids die young if they don't know how to feed themselves. I think Tim and the team would inspire head teachers across the world -- and parents. Any teacher has the same capacity to be as brilliant as he is. His story, we want to replicate, but the truth is we've got so much more to do.
TB: Jamie really revolutionized our school dinners, and it really has hugely impacted all the children, but so many in a deep way which is going to stick with them for the rest of their lives. When you change a life like that, it makes it all worthwhile. From all of us at the Charlton Manor, thank you, Jamie.
Student: Thank you, Jamie.
Student: Thank you, Jamie.
[Join the food revolution JamiesFoodRevolution.org]
