Fed Up Movie

A couple of months back I finally rented the movie Fed Up (2014), but didn’t review it until I had a chance to look up some of the information provided. According to the movie, the current generation of American children will be the first to have a shorter lifespan than their parents, and it’s due to their food habits. Opponents of the movie say that if you look at CDC and Census Bureau statistics, life expectancy continues to increase; I looked and that’s true. But the negative prediction originates from a New England Journal of Medicine article on obesity that says life expectancies are currently based on historic trends.^[1] If you look solely on the current generation of American children whom began having weight problems and related diseases like diabetes very early in life, they face a greater risk of mortality throughout life than previous generations, and the life expectancy of future generations could be markedly (2-5 years) worse. “We haven’t reversed the epidemic,” Dr. William H. Dietz, director of the division of nutrition, physical activity and obesity at the CDC, said in an interview. “This may be the first generation of children that has a lower life span than their parents.”^[2]  It sounds like we’ll see a change in the CDC expectancy chart.

The movie contends that the increase in obesity and diabetes correlates to the high consumption of sugar, particularly sodas and sweetened drinks. This fact was resolved in 2013.^[3] Calories from soda are not processed through the body compared to the same number of calories from healthy foods. Before 1980, Type 2 diabetes was rarely reported in children, accounting for less than 2% of all cases of pediatric diabetes.   Twenty years later, the American Diabetes Association reported the percentage could be up to 45% and “if this increase cannot be reversed … the cost to our society will cause us to consume enormous resources. Also, many more Americans will be taking potent medications, which have attendant risks, for most of their lives.”^[4] The movie Fed Up points out that the effects of treating someone for diabetes starting in childhood for 50+ years are currently unknown.

An issue I’ve addressed before is the misconception that buying “low fat” is better, when that’s what the food industry wants people to believe. The 1977 McGovern report found Americans were eating too much sugar and fatty meats and they should “reduce intake.” Egg, meat, and dairy lobbyists demanded a rewrite of the report and “reduce intake” was removed. Food corporations came up with the idea to remove fat from processed foods and started a whole new product line. Fat-free and “Lite” products added up to twice as much sugar, particularly in foods previously considered healthy like granola bars and yogurt. Dr. Robert Lustig explained in the movie that sugar both drives fat storage and makes the brain think it is hungry by blocking the hormone (leptin) that makes you realize you’re full.

Another point reiterated in the film was when former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler, a pediatrician by training, discussed how food addiction is a real, biological fact. He says sugar is eight times more addictive than cocaine. The food industry knows how to get children addicted at a young age, starting with baby food – especially lactose-free baby formulas. Junk food is sold at the eye level of kids. Kessler says, “They add toys, carnival-like features, colors, stimuli and end up with one of the great public health epidemics of our time.” Harvey Karp an American pediatrician who wrote Happiest Baby on the Block said, “If a foreign nation were doing this to our children we’d go to war.”

The movie made the comparison between how the tobacco industry was able to advertise to children as the food industry is today. The same year the McGovern report recommended restricting junk food ads to kids, the food industry responded by launching huge advertising campaigns to drive the nutrition education of children with their bias, and funding nutrition research that favored their products. No regulations were put in place. Again in 2004 Sen. Tom Harkin tried to regulate the food industry and fast food spending $12 billion a year on advertising aimed at kids. A McDonald’s representative responded, “Ronald McDonald never sells to children. He informs and inspires through magic and fun.” I don’t know if you’ve seen Supersize Me, but in that movie they showed young children pictures of famous people, including Jesus, and the only one all of them knew was Ronald McDonald. What I’ve noticed is that every time someone in the government tries to regulate the food industry, political extremists start a debate on removing the “nanny state” and that the government doesn’t belong in our lives. When the public got behind the tobacco issue, changes occurred, so it’s a matter of time.

One of the movies headlines is that soda is the cigarette of the 20^th century. Drinking a soda once in a while alone does not cause obesity, but smoking one cigarette once in while doesn’t cause cancer. A book could be written about the similarities between the two industries, what they knew about their products and when, and how they learned to spin their messages. It took the public, government, and media ganging up on tobacco to make a change, and that is where movies like Fed Up come into play.

Michele Simon is a public health lawyer specializing in industry marketing and lobbying tactics. She is the author of Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back and president of Eat Drink Politic. She points out there’s a difference between parental responsibilities and corporations exploiting vulnerabilities of young children and bypassing the parents. The people who are least able to know what’s good for their health is where companies focus their advertising. Other countries ban advertising to children during peak hours, tax soda, etc., but I don’t think the U.S. is mature enough to agree on a government solution. Maybe in twenty years if 95% of the country is overweight as the film predicts and one in three people have diabetes.

The film introduces us to people who are metabolically obese but a normal weight, which is called “TOFI” and stands for “thin outside, fat inside.” Many normal weight children who eat processed food have high internal body fat percentages. This fat around their internal organs is dangerous, lethal fat. TOFIs make up more than half of the national population. Health insurance companies buy stock in fast food companies; it’s in their interest to keep people unhealthy. Dr. David Ludwig, a professor at the Harvard Medical School and a pediatric obesity expert stated, “What does it say about our society if we … lack the political will to properly fund school nutrition and ban junk food advertising to children? It reflects a systematic political failure. We’re the richest society in the world. We’ve failed because we’ve placed private profit and special interests ahead of public health.”

The U.S. spends 8.1 billion dollars in subsidizing field corn, much of which is processed into the foods that make Americans fat. At the same time the government is responsible for what kids eat at school. School lunch programs are serving the food processors over the students. President Reagan cut $106 million out of the National School Lunch Program and increased the flexibility in meal planning leading to pickle relish and pizza with two tablespoons of tomato sauce to qualify as a vegetable.^[5] The budget cuts forced schools to get rid of their stoves and ovens and contract with soda companies and fast food restaurants. “The schools have become dependent on the [fast food] money, and it’s a bargain with a devil,” says Kelly D. Brownell, Dean of Public Policy for Duke University.

Here are some solutions stemming from watching the movie:

It was particularly disturbing to me how the movie followed a couple of obese high school students focusing on their school lunches. At one girl’s school each day of the week a different fast food restaurant provides the lunch food. For example, maybe Monday is McDonald’s, Tuesday is Domino’s Pizza, etc. This girl was very physically active but never lost weight and was very distraught about it. What the movie did not address was, why didn’t they teach the girl to take her own healthy lunch? No one is forced to buy school lunch, and it’s less expensive to take your own. One boy had similar weight problems but the movie showed him making his “healthy” lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chips, etc. Why didn’t they show him the ingredients on his food labels and teach him to make real food lunches? I grew up eating peanut butter and jelly and never gained weight, but I had only a half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and one glass of milk for lunch (every day for 20 years). Except one day in 3^rd grade I had a half of a salami sandwich, once in 7^th grade I had half of a bologna sandwich, and once in high school I had a half of a corned beef sandwich. As an adult, I like to have half of a grilled cheese. J

I noted that someone in the movie said, “It’s not an easy transition to real food, but everybody has a choice three times a day. The most important thing to do is cook real food.” Hallelujah! Keep up the good work, readers!