On a weekend where The Green Party laid out its vision for NZ, I came across an article in the “Weekend” magazine section of the Press about junk food, schools and kids eating poorly. The article, by Paul Christensen (I’ll try and get a link to it), reports on concerns about child obesity and how some schools are taking action by growing and cooking their own food.

As Russel Norman noted in his address to the Green Party,

“There are 20,000 New Zealand children going to school each day without food, or shoes or raincoats”

This is a major issue facing NZ. Poor health and nutrition impacts hugely on the ability to learn and on general outcomes in life. As Jamie Oliver has shown with his Food Revolution, starting early in schools can change behaviour before it becomes embedded and beyond repair. The Sustainable Kids Programme has been a real winner so far but we need more of this. Sadly the National Party over turned a previous policy on health eating in schools. It’s these types of programmes that are being slowly squeezed in the name of cutting spending. This is the classic mistake many governments make when trying to cut costs….they don’t realise that this ends up costing us all more in the long run.

We should be investing hugely in our children. In an employment constrained world, in an outsourced world, in a world of highly competitive manufacturing, we need our people to be as well as possible. They are our future. If we are going to develop a hi-tech, productive and efficient economic system then we need smart kids with good habits and a good understanding of how systems work. Food and nutrition is a perfect example of where this kind of learning can come from. If you ever seen the faces on children who have grown their own food and then cooked and eaten it then you will know what I am talking about.

We are in severe need of new jobs. Well here is a start: get every school a food and nutrition specialist, with a garden alongside. Make it a core part of the curriculum. It’s as important as P.E. (if not more important according to research). I would love to see all schools with a canteen, cooking and supplying a healthy lunchtime meal. For some children this may be the most important meal of the day. Now imagine how many jobs that could generate (with 2000 primary and secondary schools in the country).

The main argument against this approach has been of interfering in what should be a parental responsibility and also taking away to choice to eat crap, unhealthy food. Well my response to that would be to argue that schools have the advantage of scale: they can teach many kids at once. Scale is the pathway to efficiency. The most efficient way to get healthy eating into our society is through our schools and our children. They children will then take that back home and slowly change will take place.

It’s this type of vision that we need to see. Hopefully the Green Party will be the ones to bring it to the Parliamentary table.

Jamie Oliver is a machine….he is one mad food revolutionary. His results from food change programmes in the UK have been tested and shown to raise educational standards….intuitively we know this but it’s very affriming to have some research to back it up.

Now he is taking his personal brand of straight talking to the heart of America’s chronic food related problem, Huntington, West Virginia. This five county metropolitan area was designated as the unhealthiest city in the nation. Nearly half the adults in the area are obese with heart and diabetes problems running alongside.

It’s tough love all the way from the Essex Crusader who keeps giving us the harsh cold truth: crap in, crap out.

Maybe we need him down here in NZ….

I had heard that some Euros were better than others and this story confirms the rumours.

Germans are refuisng to accept Euros which have originated from the Latin Bloc, especially Italy. They want “hard” Euros issued by the almighty Bundesbank, that inflation fighting automaton. You can hardly blame them given the fiscal history of Italy, never mind Greece, Spain or Portugal.

But what this shows is the lengths to which people will go to mitigate risk. It seems a waste of time really given that the Euro is universal in its value and acceptance. But its a bit like English and Scottish Pounds. No one ever wanted a Scottish one even though they were both accepted as legal tender by the Bank of England.

Perception is everything and the Germans have long memories of inflationary times.

The sad fact is that if the financial system falls apart nothing will save you. Having a nice pile of gold soveriegns might but the reality is that there wouldn’t be enough to create a reasonable market for exchange. Now a nice veggie garden is more of a goer in times of monetary distress. This is where NZ has a major comparative advantage. Nearly everyone has a patch of dirt in which to grow stuff.

Our central banks have a lot to answer for but promoting home grown veggies is one good thing to come out of this debacle.

Do you ever feel like life is an endless re-run of Star Wars? Maybe not but news comes that Thailand has floated the idea of a rice cartel along the lines if OPEC.

Not surprisingly the Phillipines, the world’s biggest importer of rice, expressed strong reservations saying almost 3 billion people are rice eaters and calling it inhumane. Oh dear.

One can see his point. But the rise in agricultural commodities is giving producers a great opportunity to flex their muscles for a change and they may see it as one to grasp, especially if they happen to be major importers of oil.

This type of proposal will have many importers worried especially if those imports include oil and rice. We know the impact that the formation of OPEC had on the world economy and coming at at time of global financial instability, this proposal can only add to the uncertainty.

At the beginning of the April Japan came out with a new framework for monitoring the health of its citizens over 40. Otherwise know as a “flab check” it puts health insurance companies on notice to improve the physical welfare of its customers. You wouldn’t think Japan has a serious problem here but clearly the government does.

The analysis of the regulations shows an upward trend for obesity and metabolic syndrome with the accompanying costs. Japan already has a monster pension bill looming and health is just another area marked for a major budgetary blowout.

Health and nutrition are issues that governments have started to become very involved in. This leads us to the question of how far should governments go in their desire for us to have a healthy life. I would say not too far actually.

More and more the government is taking on people’s personal issues. This approach by the Japanese sets a dangerous precedent. It is against the law to hit your children but it isn’t against the law to be overweight or obese. Should the government attempt to intervene or leave it to the market?

By the market I mean the price mechanism as well as social incentives. The price mechanism can regulate food to some extent and also body mass (more expensive seats for larger people). Carrying a lot of extra weight can hurt in the pocket not just in the heart. Socially it can be difficult also with discrimination and exclusion from others.

The answer is not clear. Clearly something has to be done but are we prepared to do the hard yards (better diet and proper exercise) or wil lwe rely on the government to bail us out.

It will be interesting to see how this policy develops.

This is a big story. Wal-Mart has started to ration the amount of rice that people  can buy. Apparently this is the first time food rationing has happened in the US.

People don’t like the mention of the word “rationing”. It brings back dark memories, constructed or real’ of war economies and ration books. In our new world of credit on tap (or should I say old new world) we just have what we want when we want. The idea of not being able to do that is surely a restrction on our freedoms.

Well no it isn’t. The credit bubble that we’ve lived in post financial deregulation has lulled us in a false sense of entitlement and desire.  Hark back to the days where we had to save up for stuff or couldn’t actually buy things because we didn’t have the cash.

Those who have read my climate change paper will know it is based on establishing global quotas for fossil fuel production.  We have been living way beyond the ecosystems capacity to provide for us and the rise in food prices is a signal that we have a major problem.

This rationing which has been followed by Israel and no doubt other countries shortly.

Right then I’m off to the supermarket.