D&C 89:4 “Behold, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you: In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation—”
Last year, I asked “Are conspiring men making us fat?” I think the answer is an unmistakable yes. This weekend a new documentary came out, Fed Up (available for rent or purchase on Amazon and iTunes) and discusses why Americans are exercising more than ever, eating more “fat-free” food, yet getting fatter. I transcribed the trailer, which is actually a pretty good summary of the movie.
[Man Speaking] The epidemic here is worse than previously estimated, much worse.
[Dr Mark Hyman, Institute for Functional Medicine] The message that’s been pushed on us, “It’s your fault you’re fat.”
[Michelle Obama] It shouldn’t be so hard to get them to run around and play, right?
[unknown] They have voracious appetites and they don’t exercise enough.
[Whoopi Goldberg] It’s about how active our kids are.
[Dr. Hyman] Forget about it.
[Dr. Mark Lustig, Prof of Pediatrics, UCSF] There are 600,000 food items in America, 80% of them have added sugar.
[unknown] Your brain lights up with sugar just like it does with cocaine or heroine. You’re going to become an addict
[Dr. Kessler, former FDA commissioner] You end up with one of the great health epidemics of our time.
[unknown] This the first generation of American children expected to lead shorter lives than their parents.
[12-year old obese girl] I am 12 years old and doctors have told me I am a statistic.
[Dr Gary Taubes, author of Why We got Fat and What to do about it] We’re blaming willpower, and it’s a crime.
[Katie Couric, CBS News] Over 95% of all Americans will be overweight or obese in two decades.]
[Dr. Kessler] We’re toast, as a country.
[Dr. Mark Lustig] The sugar industry is extraordinarily powerful. They’re in business to make money, not to keep America healthy.
[Katie Couric] What if our whole approach to this epidemic has been dead wrong?
[Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma] The government is subsidizing the obesity epidemic {graphic notes $8.1 Billion}
[Dr. David Ludwig, Assoc Prof. Pediatric Medicine, Harvard University] We place private profit ahead of public health, systematic political failure.
[Couric] By 2050, one out of every three Americans will have diabetes.
[unknown] Those diseases are being driven by sugar.
[Dr. Hyman] This is the fundamental problem. Nobody’s talking about it in society.
[Bill Clinton, former Pres of USA] We could cure 80% of the problem where they prepare the food in the school.
[Katie Couric asks…] Tomato Paste is a vegetable? Really?
[U.S. Government official shakes his head in disbelief]
[Mark Bittman, New York Times] Junk food companies are acting very much like Tobacco companies did 30 years ago.
[man testifying before Congress as Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont reads ingredients of Coke can] I would reject entirely that they are in any way harmful.
[Senator Tom Harkin, Iowa] Lying through their teeth.
[unknown] Kids are being told the biggest lie that they will ever hear in their lives.
[Shelly Rosen of the McDonald’s Corporation, Eat Smart, Be Active Program] Ronald McDonald never sells to children. He informs and inspires through magic and fun.
[Dr. Harvey Karp, pediatrician, author of Happiest Baby on the Block] If a foreign nation did that to our children, we would defend our families.
[Mark Bittman, New York Times] Years from now, we’re going to say “I can’t believe we let them get away with that.”
[Pres. Bill Clinton] You have to change the diet of America.
[Richard Carmona, former Surgeon General of the U.S.] It’s all preventable.
After watching the film, a few things really struck me.
- The Food Industry cares more about profits than health. In 1977, George McGovern held a panel and found that Americans were eating too many animal products: eggs, red meat, dairy, etc. The food industry lobbied to have the report changed, and pledged to provide “low fat” products. When you remove fat from food, it tastes nasty. In order to make the food taste good, they loaded it with sugar.
- Sugar is more addictive than cocaine. 43 mice addicted to cocaine were given a choice of sugar water, or cocaine water. 40 of 43 chose the sugar water.
- Sugar in fruits does not cause a spike in your blood sugar, because of the fiber in the fruit slows down absorption. However, sugar in drinks and other non-fiber foods goes straight to the liver. Insulin is produced, and the sugar is immediately turned to fat. Sugar is making us fat more than fat.
- You can’t avoid sugar unless you become a vegetarian. 80% of 600,000 food products contain sugar, including salad dressing, peanut butter, tomato sauce, etc. The food industry has addicted us all to sugar in order to make it taste better, and is making us fat.
- YOU CAN’T EXERCISE ENOUGH TO COMPENSATE FOR THE SUGAR IN OUR FOOD.
Every time there have been attempts to regulate food, ESPECIALLY advertising to children, the food industry cries “Nanny State”, you should exercise, and use personal responsibility. Yet they are manipulating our food to make us crave it. Don’t believe me? Go on a diet. I dare you. I guarantee you will crave unhealthy food. It is not an accident.
Last year, inspired by Hawkgrrrl’s post about HCG, I decided to try it. I ate 500 calories a day, for 6 weeks, then upped my intake to 1500 calories a day for 6 more weeks. I lost 35 pounds. Encouraged by my success, I did it again. I ate 500 calories a day for 5 weeks and this time lost just 15 pounds for a grand total of 50 pounds over a 17 week period. I felt great (but the funny thing is apparently I hide my weight well–nobody noticed), my pants were getting too big, it was great. But at the end of that 17 weeks, I craved bad food like crazy. A year later, I have gained back my 50 pounds.
The HCG diet works, but it is not sustainable, IMO. I was eating vegetables, some fruits, and protein like fish & chicken. It was amazing to me how much I craved Oreos, Doritos, salt and sugar. This is no accident. In order to keep the weight off, you have to buy fruit & vegs every few days (which often spoils before you can eat it). Processed food has a much longer shelf life. It’s convenient, quick, takes less time to prepare, and frankly tastes better. But it is junk and makes us fat–even fat-free foods which are crammed full of sugar in order to make them taste good.
The government corn subsidies make our food cheap. The cost is rising health care costs. There were 0 cases of Type 2 diabetes in children in 1980. Last year there were more than 50,000 cases. This is not a case of children suddenly losing personal responsibility over the last 30 years, it is a case of the food industry manipulating our food to make us crave it. “Betcha can’t eat just one!” is one of the slogans that shows us how addictive junk food is.
Do you support Congressional legislation:
- Limiting advertising to children (as was done with Big Tobacco)?
- Showing federal standards of sugar in foods to limit the addictiveness of added sugar?
- Forcing equal air time where celebrities that endorse junk food also spend time endorsing fruits and vegetables (like was done with Big Tobacco)?
- Make it illegal for Fast food to sell school lunch? (Given the choice of an apple or a candy bar, what child picks the apple? Oh, I guess the parents aren’t teaching personal responsibility well enough.)
A few other questions:
- Many Tobacco companies have purchased food companies. Is it any wonder they know how to addict us to bad food the same way they addicted many to cigarettes?
- Do you think the food companies are shifting blame to “personal responsibility” when they are responsible for the food cravings we all have now?
- Is the “nanny state” defense a smokescreen?
- Should food companies be demonized like Big Tobacco was in order to make us healthy?
Wheat & Tares 
I read a book on the subject back in 1987-88. I believe it was called ‘The politics of food’ or something similar. I don’t know who wrote it, but it isn’t the book of that title that comes up on a search now. I found it very informative. Lots about the self-interest of big business.
I also recall, and I believe I’ve commented on this before, about 10 years ago listening to a radio programme about the psychology of taste, and the way in which snack companies specifically design the tastes of their products to deliver an incomplete taste experience, so that you will keep eating in a bid to ‘complete’ the taste, to finish the experience, which never happens. And yes, it is used as an advertising feature ‘they taste so good, you won’t want to stop’ or similar, hmm. It’s very manipulative.
I have not seen the movie yet, and I think I will have to rent it.
I am trying to figure this statement out. It seems to me that it is not a vegetarian you want to become, but instead you should become a label reader and a whole foods consumer (not the chain of stores, I mean less processed food); vegetarians still need to read labels closely. Personally, I highly recommend a vegetarian-like diet, just not as a way to avoid sugars.
I will have to think more about the questions you asked, but this might give the flavor of what I think: if we can add sin and health taxes onto tobacco and alcohol, then we can do the same with refined sugars.
You raise good questions. Thanks for the thought food…
One change that has occurred in schools (at least in Texas schools? I’m getting this from talking to my teacher BF) is that schools do NOT have vending machines available where kids can access — and schools that do have healthy options.
I remember when I was in junior high and high school, I’d eschew lunch on days I didn’t like the options and get candy and soda instead.
I don’t know if this is true in many states or school districts, but I was baffled. I doubt Oklahoma (where I grew up) has implemented the same thing.
I do think that there is also a need to talk about the logistic aspects of healthy food. This is alluded to in the post with the following lines:
Many people simply do not have the time and resources to buy fruit and vegs as regularly as would be required. And it goes beyond just that, as even for other items, it’s true that if you cook things from scratch, you can make them healthier, but you also then have to cook. Many people do not have the time, resources, skill, or motivation of learning how to cook, or wanting to cook. There is a very real sense in which processed food is actually satisfying plenty of needs (e.g., it *is* long-lasting, quick, and tasty.) I mean, a lot of processed food options are so popular because they essentially eliminated the need to have a person (usually a woman) in the kitchen slaving over a stove for every meal. The prospect of going back to such a model is not really going to excite people. Fast food obviously is fast.
I mean, I personally enjoy baking (haha, not helping with the sugar here, though). But even though I enjoy baking, I can’t say I cook a lot of my daily meals. It’s so much easier to eat at work at the food court, and since I’m at work through breakfast, lunch, and dinner for much of the year, that means fast food or restaurant food for all three meals. (and yep, it definitely has an impact on the scales.)
This article was very timely for me as I am on day 13 of the Whole30, a diet that eliminates sugar (among other things like grains and legumes) for 30 days and then slowly add things back in to see what foods bother you. It also is supposed to help reset taste buds so that natural foods taste better. I will say that the first week was awful, I had an off and on migraine and fluctuating energy levels, but now things are starting to even out and I am feeling much better, sleeping way better and losing weight without exercising. After my 30 days are done I plan to continue eating primarily natural foods while allowing the prohibited items back in moderation.
This is a large difference from a few years ago when my diet had almost no fat in it (one of the Whole 30 rules is to eat healthy fats with each meal), when I did that I gained a ton of weight, couldn’t think straight and had no energy.
Mm, i dont think any diet resets taste buds. My diet went 4months and didnt reset mine.
I think it is a matter of personal responsibility. I find it easy to buy cheap, healthy groceries. I don’t always feel like cooking, but honestly I do have the time.
I don’t see a reason to demonize food companies. They are providing what people demand is all. I don’t want food companies or the government to be responsible for my health. That sounds dangerous.
I also don’t believe sugar is more addictive than cocaine. Is it possible the rats preferred sugar b/c they were starving and needed calories?
I do think the food industry is catering to our whims. We want it fast and easy and full of taste. We want fruits and vegetables year round. We want to eat out so we can get on doing whatever it is we like to do. We’ve created a demand, and there is someone waiting to supply it. Having said that, I don’t think we’re powerless. Weight loss and maintenance is hard work, and for most of us, requires a true lifestyle change. I made a weight goal of not allowing myself to gain over 15% of my wedding day weight when I got married 32 years ago and have just now hit 10%. I like my Oreos and ice cream and pizza like anyone else, but I’ve stayed active and exercised on a consistent basis and kept my weight in check. I am an especially firm believer in exercise. I don’t mean you have to train for a 26 mile marathon or anything, but cardio and weight lifting along with a decent diet will do wonders. It can be done regardless of where you live and what age you are.
IMO, this is the wrong blog for this topic–but then I am not of the blog’s in-crowd.
I wonder how much has to do with the diet we are fed as babies & toddlers. My mother would encourage us to eat solids by putting sweet fruit purée on the front of the spoon and feed us the remaining purée afterwards. To this day I don’t feel as though a meal is finished without something sweet at the end. With my own kids I didn’t give them anything sweet until they were much older. Neither of them has a sweet tooth, though my daughter loves savoury, and snacks on cheese.
The other thing is post rationing in WW2 children were encouraged to eat everything on their plates, there was often dessert, but to get dessert you had to finish the first course. Basically, kids were encouraged to eat past their satiated state and we didn’t learn to listen to our bodies, and to recognise when we’d eaten enough.
A third and final point is the role of epigenetics, whether our recent ancestors always had enough to eat, and therefore the extent to which our bodies are set to store a proportion of what we eat for lean times.
I do think food industries have things to answer for too.
So a comples mix of factors, in which individual choice and control plays a part as well, but is not the full picture.
and
A diet might not, but a good, long extended fast will. Something between 28 – 33 day (sometimes more, sometimes less) should do it. There is a point when you stop feeling hungry in your core (tummy) and begin to feel it in your mouth and with your tongue. An extended fast like that would also reset your perception of what hunger actually is. During extended fasting, not only will your body purge out toxins it has been storing, it also purges the microbes in your gut and allows you to start fresh. We have started learning via studies that the health and composition of the colonies of gut microbes can also affect things like obesity, mental health including depression, appetites (things like sugar or carbohydrate craving).
#7, I think the food companies do sell us what we want – but they also do quite a bit to manipulate what we want. It’s more than an arm’s length transaction between a willing buyer and willing seller; it’s more like the junkie crawling to the pusher.
I’ve read Gary Taubes’ book “Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It,” which is a pretty convincing layout of a low-grain, low-sugar, high-fat, high-protein diet. And it works, too, until those cinnamon donuts start to look too good and you begin to cheat. Then I gained back 15 of the 25 I’d lost, for the same reason MH says – I really, really wanted the sugary stuff. It takes a long time to reduce the craving and no time at all to bring it back full-force.
Any post on weight control and nutrition is always of great personal interest to yours truly. Having once “lived large” (at one point, 340 lbs worth), I can personally attest that “living off the fat of the land” isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Nor is what I did to get to a much better weight (under 200 lbs) all THAT great (included RnY surgery with attendant side effects, don’t do it unless a likely early dirt nap looms large…), but at least I live on. Ever notice how the ‘herd’ literally “thins out” after about age 55 or so? Could be a REASON….
IMO, it’s not so much “conspiring men” as it’s businesses pushing their products in a consumer-driven marketplace. Thankfully that Americans don’t have to YET seek approval from some bureaucrat to eat, drink, or otherwise consume products on the basis of it being “good for them” or not. Sure, there’s a great deal of utter crap out there, and a lot of ’empty calories’, and too many calories being consumed, period. The key is education and incentives, both from personal wellness and also financial. Yes, some day some airline is going to, likely as a marketing stunt, to charge by the pound for passenger service. Is it a bad idea? Well, to those that would get all huffy about “fat acceptance”, I say, no one is forcing you to accept airfare under those terms. Start a “Phat Boy” airline service (“Phly Phar with Phat Boy”!!). Same certainly goes with what we shove down our respective pie holes (including pie). Just as the late SWK said about adopting “styles of our own”, we can literally grow and eat produce of our choosing. We can involve ourselves in food co-ops that produce more locally grown or raised and ‘natural’ products (there are imitators that deceive, be careful). It’s not that I damn Archer-Daniels Midland, RJR-Nabisco, Frito-Lay, PepsiCo, or Coca-Cola, or any other food conglomerate for their mere size and/or participation in the marketplace (though their often stifling of the upstart is downright un-American, IMHO), but we the consumer ultimately have ability to take our dollars and palates elsewhere if what they produce doesn’t satisfy, or at least get them to produce what what we want.
The only trouble is, often what we “want”, all the blatherings of the activists and policitians notwithstanding, IS the crap. Take, for example, when McDonalds came out with the “McLean (Deluxe)”. In spite of extensive market research and an attempt to reach a more sophisticated, food-conscious adult market, it was an utter flop.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLean_Deluxe
Or as Dennis Leary (who was admonished by Det. John Spartan at movie’s end to get a LOT cleaner…) ..”You see, according to Cocteau’s plan… I’m the enemy, ’cause I like to think; I like to read. I’m into freedom of speech and freedom of choice. I’m the kind of guy likes who likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder – “Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecued ribs with the side order of gravy fries?” I want high cholesterol. I wanna eat bacon and butter and BUCKETS of cheese, okay? I want to smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section. I want to run through the streets naked with green Jell-O all over my body reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly might feel the need to…”
Else let’s all get with the Obamacare thing, and hope we “make weight” the next time the Nanny State checks up on us, or it’ll be noted in our “permanent record”….
I’ve found it helpful not to eat added sugar at breakfast, which is an easy goal. Wholegrains and fruit. Then cut out sugars between meals, or indeed eating between meals. Interestingly, whilst I do keep to those rules, I know I’m eating more sugar than ever historically, and I spend to much time sitting, both symptomatic of new working habits. We just aren’t active enough for the calories we consume, so we get fat.
I absolutely would like to see advertising to kids stopped as they are not sufficiently informed to be able to decide what’s good for them, and it leads to a lot of stress between parents and children, especially those who are already under time and financial stresses. I’ve held out for healthy food for my kids and it has mostly payed off as they have little taste in the long term for highly calorific foods, but it has been perhaps the single most stressful issue between us due to external pressures. Incidentally, I do find our church community to be particularly addicted to high calorie stuff like ice cream, it’s as if the self denial we have to exercise elsewhere earns us the right to be self indulgent in relation to food. It’s not attractive, and we’ve felt very isolated in trying to keep our kids properly nourished.
Allquieton; “I don’t want food companies or the government to be responsible for my health.”
I’m afraid that the government is already involved in this issue by the agricultural subsidies which are given to producers (what we’re paying farmers to grow). And the food pyramid is deeply influenced by the food corporation/lobbyists which encourage over-eating.
So I agree with you; I don’t want food companies or the government to be responsible for my health, but since these entities are seriously contributing to the problem, we must address them to create a solution.
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Gary-Taubes-ebook/dp/B000UZNSC2/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410824186&sr=1-2&keywords=taubes
Utahhiker–I think that with the current degree of gov./food company involvement, people can and do create their own solutions to their own health problems. Although, it would be easier with less involvement. But it seems like some people here are advocating for more involvement. Which I think is dangerous.
One of the things the movie brought out was why the US government got involved in the school lunch program in the first place. During WW2, many recruits were rejected from service in the military because of malnutrition. So, the US government started providing school lunch to fix that problem.
While it was a good solution at first, in the past few decades, the idea to privatize school lunch and save tax dollars has been implement. So, in order to save money and stimulate private involvement, school districts have outsourced school lunch away from the school cafeterias when I was a kid to fast food: Chick Fil-A Monday, Papa John tuesday, etc. Bill Clinton said we could fix 80% of the problem of obesity just by going back to the original school lunch program.
However, one of the $3Billion pizza companies got the Minnesota Senator to classify pizza as a vegetable so it can still be offered in school lunch. She refused to comment on the documentary. This is the kind of corruption in our government. (But I’m sure she got a lot of campaign donations from them!)
So for people to argue personal responsibility when our senators aren’t responsible enough to protect our school age children from obesity, well, I have a problem with that. It’s why we have teh explosion of Type 2 diabetes in our children. We need better protections from these lobbyists who are making our children fat.
Steve, here’s another book by Taubes: Why we are Fat: And What to Do About It
MH–Why do you blame the senators and lobbyists for diabetes and not the parents?
Are the children supposed to not eat the pizza when it is offered? How many children do you know that would do that allquieton? Do your kids make those choices at school lunch when you’re not there? If so, I think you’re in the VAST minority.
Allquieton, did parents go derelict in the past 30 years when there were 0 Type 2 diabetes among children, and now there are 50,000? Are today’s parents that much worse that we are 50,000 times worse than those parents of 30 years ago?
The movie also talked some someone from the Federal Trade Commission and found that the FTC has more power to regulate advertising for adults than children. We need to stop advertising Tony the Tiger, the Trix Rabbit, etc to kids. Certainly children don’t have nearly the maturity to understand these messages. There have been pushes since the 1950s to stop this kind of advertising. We have it for tobacco (no more Fred Flintstone lighting up a cigarette, or Joe Camel), but the Lucky Charms leprechaun is a-ok.
Well sack lunches are an option. Plus, I doubt kids who are eating healthy at home would get diabetes from a school lunch 5 times a week. Let’s be honest–these kids are probably eating vast amounts of junk food at home.
Let’s be honest. Many of these kids come from poor homes and can’t afford lunch so they eat school lunch for free or reduce prices. And they get fat from it.
It’s nice to be smug and assume that everyone has enough money and time to pack their own lunch. But the fact is that many of these kids come from homes that are less than ideal. Check out the video. They talk about quite a few.
Did you not realize that the government subsidizes lunch for poor children? Or do you think they all go to private schools from rich parents?
My neighbors, a sweet family, with four pre-teens and teenagers, qualify for school breakfasts and lunches, which is financially a great boon for them and the children all participate. Two of the children struggle with weight challenges. The other two are slim.
That leads me to believe that we cannot put the whole blame on the school food. Obesity has many factors.
“Processed food has a much longer shelf life. It’s convenient, quick, takes less time to prepare, and frankly tastes better.”
May be true, except that I do know some good home cooks that make really delicious food.
I can think of a number of things in life that, like healthy meals from scratch, are good and that take time, effort and self-mastery to create and enjoy and that also have a substitute out in the world that is convenient, quick to prepare, and seems, at first glance, more enjoyable.
Mutually satisfying married sex is one of those good things that takes time, effort and self-mastery. An endorphin high from hard work or exercise is another. You could probably name more things, that, like these, for which the world offers a less than ideal substitute option that is quicker and more convenient.
If we are financially in a position to choose between the real thing and the substitute thing it behooves us to choose wisely in spite of cravings. For many of us (not all, but a significant number) this is a battle of self-mastery. And being human, it is and will always be a struggle.
Ease of access makes fighting the battle harder. But I think we learned from the prohibition era that reducing access via government action does not curb indulgence.
That does not excuse the decisions of those who manufacture and sell things that are unhealthy, be they cigarettes, booze, caffeine saturated energy drinks or cream-filled chocolate cupcakes. And, equally, it does not excuse our decisions to give in to cravings and indulge at unhealthy levels, be those cravings our own or those of our children.
I believe that both we we and the manufacturers will be held accountable for our actions, independent of the actions of the other.
MH–
You say kids are fat b/c of school lunches. What are you basing it on? I think it’s a faulty conclusion b/c school lunches are only 5 out of approximately 21 meals that children eat each week.
I actually went to public school and got reduced lunches. So did all 6 of my siblings. So I’m aware that not everyone is rich. Interestingly though, all but one of us were skinny growing up.
All homes are less than ideal. The truth is some kids come from awful homes. And this is the actual problem. Not the the food companies or the school lunches or the lobbyists.
Allquieton,
School lunch is just one of many factors in the obesity epidemic. Our children are most vulnerable to advertising messages, and bad food, yet the government has fewer controls over manipulative advertisting targeted at our youth than it does at adults. Yes the epidemic is multi-faceted
Where am I getting this from? Let’s hear from some experts.
That is the first of a few quotes that I will find. Allquieton, how do you explain why obesity and exercise rates have both doubled? Shouldn’t they counteract themselves? Have parents become more derelict between 1980 and 2000? Please explain this to me, because I don’t understand why you are blaming this on personal responsibility, except that you are swallowing this bullcrap from the food industry and your politicians., who are not nutrition experts I might add. Why are you refusing to listen to experts in this problem? Where is Lustig wrong?
An insightful article…
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Thanks for the link Nlocnil. A quote from the article you posted:
More quotes from the movie. the movie imitates the messages that you hear to overcome obesity.
I will just note that the drink, fries, and cookie require 3 hours of exercise to get your energy balance, and that doesn’t include the hamburger.
[Lustig] So if you burn a calorie sleeping, or if you burn a calorie exercising, it’s still a calorie burned. The question is, ‘is a calorie eaten, a calorie eaten’, and for that we have really good data, and it says a calorie is not a calorie.
Why is a calorie, not a calorie?
Alright, let’s give you an example. Let’s take an easy one. Let’s take almonds. If you consume 160 calories in almonds, because of the fiber in the almonds, the food is not going to get absorbed immediately, so your blood sugar rise is going to be a lot lower, it’s going to be for longer.
So what’s the opposite of the almond? Well, the opposite of the almond would be a soft drink. Because there’s no fiber, they get absorbed straight through the portal system to the liver. The liver gets this big sugar rush. When your liver gets that onslought, it has no choice but to turn it into fat immediately.
So, 160 calories in almonds, or 160 calories in soda. You tell me which is better?
Nah, this is just unfair demonizing of Coke.
Hmmm, that seems to follow the rise in obesity rates despite exercise over the same time period, and seems to explain why there were 0 cases of Type 2 diabetes in 1980 among children, whereas there are now over 57,000 cases.
Ah, let’s blame the parents!
Allquieton, what is your explanation? Do you think this is still personal responsibility, or do these companies share in the blame for the obesity epidemic?
[Lustig]The metabolic diseases that are associated with sugar {graphic shows that obesity health care costs are currently $190 Billion/year}, the diabetes, the heart disease, the lipid problems, the strokes, the cancer, those diseases are being driven by sugar.
[Couric] Fructose, the sweet part of sugar can only be processed in the liver. When your liver is pushed to the max, the pancreas comes to the rescue by producing excess amounts of a hormone called insulin.
[Lustig] Insulin is the energy storage hormone. Insulin turns sugar into fat for storage. That’s Insulin’s job.
[Couric] High levels of insulin can block your brain from receiving the signal that you’re full.
[Lustig] Problem is, your brain thinks you’re starving. So how do you feel when you’re starved? Crappy, tired, slothy, sit on the couch, don’t want to do anything, and of course hungry. Well, I’ve just described every obese patient.
The behaviors that we associate with obesity, the eating too much, the exercising too little, the gluttony and the sloth, they are the result of the biochemistry, not the cause.
[Couric] The problem is, sugar isn’t just in cookies and desserts.
[Lustig] If you go to the supermarket, there are 600,000 food items in America and 80% of them have added sugar.
{graphic shows various comparison}
Coke can has 9.75 tsp, Odwalla green tea has 9.25 tsp
Gushers candy has 6.5 tsp, Yoplait yogurt has 6.5 tsp
3 Oreo cookies have 3.5 tsp. One Luna bar has 3.5 tsp
1 package of M&Ms has 7 tsp, one jar of Prego Spaghetti sauce has 12.5 tsp
{Couric then names many varieties of sugar added to food, including high fructose corn syrup.}
[Dr Mark Hyman, Institute for Functional Medicine] Food addiction is a real thing. It’s not a metaphor. It’s a biological fact. Studies show that your brain lights up with sugar just like it does with cocaine or heroine. In fact, sugar is 8 times more addictive that cocaine. So if you start your baby early on addictive, highly sugary foods, they’re going to become addicted.
[Lustig] Take a look at {baby} formulas. Certain formulas, especially lactose-free formulas, they substitute with sucrose. The food industry knows that they earlier they introduce these foods to people, to children, to infants, the more likely they will have branded them for the future.
[Dr Mark Hyman]
[Brady Kluge, obese, age 15] A lot of times people wonder why it’s so hard to lose weight, but a big reason might be because you actually have those foods, the chips and the brownies and the cookies and the cakes and ice cream in your house. It’s just like being an alcoholic. Do you think an alcoholic could withstand from drinking that alcohol if he had a bottle of gin sitting next to him? It would be tough to do.
When you’re close to it, you want it. And the same way with food.
[Dr. Kessler, former FDA commissioner] We like to think we make rational decisions, but the fact is our brains are getting constantly hijacked. You can’t walk in most cities, most places more than 100 feet without having your brain being activated in some way.
Yeah, politicians and lobbyists have nothing to do with obesity. It’s personal responsibility.
I don’t think ppl should comment on the films content until they see the film. I can’t wait to see it myself.
Sedentary lifestyle (a lot of time spent watching TV or staring at computer screens) is often listed as a contributor to obesity in children, with the belief that time spent not active prevents burning of calories.
It is obvious that time spent screen watching reduces the amount of time a child spends interacting with adults and more mature peers as well as engaging in imaginative play. What’s interesting to consider is that both of those activities, interaction with older people and imaginative play, are critical to a child’s development of the skill of self-regulation.
So we may want to consider that screen time not only prevents appropriate burning of consumed calories, but it also decreases the child’s ability to develop impulse control. And impulse control is of vital importance when one is shopping for food, deciding when to snack and what to eat and saying no to a food craving when one lives in a society full of tasty less than healthy food options.
I wonder if the generations that have grown up since the 1950s, the eras after TV became a daily activity and has been increasingly indulged in, are not only dealing with the effects of screen time taking time away from hours spent being active, but also the with the effects of not having had the quantity of self-regulation development time that previous generations had as children.
We might also consider that we Americans have become downright gluttons. IF we were to practice moderation in consumption of “junk food” or “empty calories”, the scenario that MH poses of 160 “good” calories of raw almonds versus 160 “bad” calories of sugary soda pop. I’m not so old (55) that I can remember when Coca-cola still came in 6¼ or 10 oz. bottles, and when I was about eleven it was a big deal that you could buy a 32 oz. “Family Sized” bottle! When you got a hamburg(lar) at McDonald’s, it was that little 2½ oz. slider and a handful of fries. Along with a small fountain soft drink (12 oz.), it cost a whopping 75¢. Though I consider Morgan Spurlock to be a hack and a fraud, the essence of the title of his screed against the fast food industry (“SUPER SIZE Me”) isn’t entirely wrong. In comparison to my youth, we drink rivers of sugary soda.
MB’s point about less parental involvement with children (using the boob tube as a baby sitter) contributing to snacking and overindulgence is unfortunately spot on. When I was but a lad, Mom was home, but I got pushed out the house after school to go play (e.g., get out of her hair), not that I needed much persuasion. It was off to ride our spider bikes through the creek, or get together a pickup game of football. Kids were ACTIVE on their own. I can’t recall when was the last time I saw a bunch of rugrats milling about on a quiet residential street. Now, either some cranky fussbudget is calling the cops, or CPS, or threatening to go to the homeowner’s association, if one of the little darlings gets loose.
The problem with sugar is the same problem with fat and processed foods: these concentrated sources of calories are addictive. I believe one of the main purposes of the Word of Wisdom is to help us get away from addictions of all kinds. If you are interested, I’ve written more on food addiction and the Word of Wisdom here: http://ldsmag.com/article-1-14553/