Fed Up

A few days ago I started watching a documentary called Fed Up that recently appeared on Netflix. I saw the trailer last year and I couldn't wait for the documentary to come out (I put the trailer below). I've seen several documentaries about the effect food, particularly American food, has on our country's collective health. Most of these discussed sugar and it's omnipresence in the American diet, but Fed Up is the first one I've seen that is all about sugar. It is narrated by Katie Couric, directed by Stephanie Soechtig (known for GMO OMG), and produced by Laurie David, producer of An Inconvenient Truth.

I'm writing this post mainly to recommend the documentary to those interested, rather than to review it. Like I said, it's available to watch on Netflix and I think Vimeo also has the whole documentary here. For those who are not interested or don't have time to watch, I will highlight some important points below. 

The label on the right shows the total amount of sugars, calories, and sodium in a
bottle of Coca Cola. From the blog Food Politics by Marion Nestle. 

• In the U.S., 93 million Americans are obese--this is roughly one-third of the country. A lot of these cases can be attributed to consumption of sugary drinks (though diet soda is just as harmful). 
• Sugar is silent but deadly: every time you ingest sugar, it triggers a spike in insulin levels that convert sugar into fat so your body can store it. Also it is highly addictive, 7 times more than cocaine.
• People should only consume about 6 teaspoons of sugar (about 25 grams) every day, but most Americans consume about 153 grams of sugar daily. This isn't very hard to do, since a can of coke has about 39 grams of sugar. 
• While it is certainly important to exercise and not to take in significantly more calories than you spend, weight loss is not that simple. The food you eat to get those calories really does matter. I wrote more about this in a post some months ago.  
• Obesity is a disease of poverty, meaning that is disproportionately affects lower-income families. Oftentimes these families are minorities. 
• Children are targeted by the food industry even more than adults through advertisements for sugary and fatty foods and drinks on kids' channels. Latino children are even more exposed; they seem about 50% more of these ads on Spanish-language television. 
• The U.S. food industry (Big Food, as it is often called) has done everything they can to make sure they don't lose profits. This is by far the most frustrating part of the documentary. The health of its population should be a country's priority, but sadly that doesn't seem to be the case in the U.S.. 

I would also like to point you to a blog about the same issues, aptly named Food Politics, by Marion Nestle.