Jamie Oliver launches global campaign to get food education in schools

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has today launched a global petition and social media campaign to demand compulsory food education for all children.

Oliver is launching the Food Revolution Day campaign in reaction to the number of diet-related diseases among children, encouraging people to sign the petition on Change.org lobbying all G20 governments to include food education on curriculums, and for people to share the petition on social media under the hashtag #foodrevolutionday. Thousands of schools around the world will be hosting events today to get kids cooking.

To raise awareness for the campaign Oliver has posted a music video on his Facebook page of him rapping about the campaign with backing from Ed Sheeran, Hugh Jackman and Sir Paul McCartney. The video has so far had over 21 million views. At the time of writing the petition had over one million signatures from 182 countries.

Oliver is well known for his campaigns for better food and food education in schools. He said: "Obesity more often than not leads to diet-related diseases like type-2 diabetes which can increase the risk of developing a number of serious health problems and decrease the life expectancy of many people.

"But obesity is preventable and I believe that by educating our children about food and where it comes from and how to cook it and how to shop, we can turn the tide on the obesity epidemic that affects most of the world in 2015."

According to the World Health Organisation there are more than 42 million children in the world under the age of five who are overweight or obese, obesity worldwide has doubled since 1980, and children today are the first generation predicted to live shorter lives than their parents.