Jamie Oliver to star in ABC reality show

ABC is teaming with British chef Jamie Oliver and Ryan Seacrest fora new unscripted series that gives healthy makeovers to an entirecity.

Oliver will travel to the unhealthiest places in America and findways to use nearby resources to improve local eating habits. Thenetwork has ordered six hours of the project from Ryan SeacrestProductions.

The series is loosely inspired on Oliver's acclaimed school lunchproject in the U.K., where the chef set about to improve kids'nutrition. His effort to improve one school's offerings, documentedin the 2005 series "Jamie's School Dinners," shamed educators intopassing new measures to ban certain junk foods.

Seacrest said he talked about school lunches during a segment onhis KISS FM morning radio show and was struck by the amount oflistener response. Then he heard Oliver was looking to bring hispublic service campaign stateside. The resulting ABC show will notonly tackle a city's schools, but workplaces and other avenues forchange.

"I couldn't do what I do in terms of my schedule if I didn't eatright and exercise right," Seacrest said. "As a kid I was chubby,and I'm a firm believer that the fuel we put into our body resultsin a healthy lifestyle. Jamie's going to come over here, roll uphis sleeves and use the resources of each town to help conditionliving habits to make it a better and healthier place."

Oliver previously appeared as a judge on ABC's successful one-offseries "Oprah's Big Give," where his personality impressed thenetwork. Though health and fitness reality genre (dominated byNBC's "The Biggest Loser") has proved a tough nut for networks tocrack, ABC's co-head of alternative series Vicki Dummer points outthat Oliver benefits from having successful experience doing thissort of program in the UK.

"Jamie has been through this mission before," she said. "He will bean advocate for change, but not act like, 'I'm from Britain and youAmericans are fat.' I think he's really equipped to make a changeand knock on the right doors."

The target city hasn't yet been named, but it's expected to be aplace that has been cited on "fattest cities" lists. ABC expects toair the as-yet-untitled show sometime next year.