Television personality Robert Irvine sparked lively back-and-forth verbal exchanges on child nutrition issues at the opening general session presentation on July 28 at the 2022 International Fresh Produce Association’s Foodservice Conference.
Irvine, star of the Food Network’s long-running “Restaurant Impossible” show, heard from school produce professionals attending the show about the progress that has been made since the passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010 and what more needs to be done.
He pledged to work with school and industry leaders to help schools and nonprofit groups meet the needs of children in schools and in food deserts.
Author and speaker Leslie Sbrocco interviewed Irvine on stage and later helped to field questions from the audience.
Irvine said one of his main missions now is helping the military see the value of healthy, nutritious food and changing the military’s feeding habits. Irvine said the military spends $10.2 billion on obesity-related diseases in the active-duty military. “We’ve cared about planes and drones and ships and tanks and whatever, but never cared about the people that drive or ride them,” he said. “I’m on a mission, and you are part of that, to educate husbands, wives, brothers and sisters, grandmas and granddad’s uncle’s on the benefits of fresh and healthy vegetables and fruit.”
Irvine said the goal of his work is to change the feeding landscape in the country. “I think we can change anything, collectively.”
After Irvine voiced concern about the state of child nutrition efforts, the topic of funding school meals received attention from Irvine and the audience. One school nutrition director asked Irvine the question, “How do we advocate within the Department of Defense, the USDA, and our congressmen and women to change how we nourish our country?”
Irvine said the military is increasingly concerned with the nutrition and health of children, in part because obesity and other issues are shrinking the pool of young people meeting minimum physical requirements for military service.
Betti Wiggins, child nutrition administrator for the Houston Independent School District, said some parents can’t afford to buy healthy food for their kids, despite the immense efforts of school foodservice professionals s to give kids exposure to healthy fruits and vegetables.
“It is hungry families who send us hungry children, and we are the first stop ensuring that those kids get nutrition,” she said, asking Irvine to help school nutrition advocates lobby Congress to expand support for child nutrition programs.
Luis Yepiz, chief procurement officer for The Farmlink Project, also asked for Irvine’s support to advocate for food banks and charities in meeting the needs of children in families in food deserts across the U.S., noting that some people live in communities with only liquor stores and fast-food restaurants and don’t have the money to drive to grocery stores. Yepiz also called on produce suppliers to donate more fruits and vegetables to food banks and help educate people about the importance of their nutrition choices.
Irvine pledged to work with IFPA CEO Cathy Burns on how he might help with efforts to lobby for fresh and nutritious food to kids, the military and families who don’t have it. “Give me a game plan to go forward.”
