Obesity and the food industry (update 1a): "The men who made us fat" - UK documentary

So what really causes us to be fat? Has the food industry led us into addiction?


7 December 2014: The Truth about Fat in Time

The Truth About Fat by Michael Lester @moikl, June 12, 2014; "When you want to lose weight or get healthy, what is the first thing you would normally cut from your diet? If you said fat, you’re not alone.... For years, the advice from the USDA has been to reduce the level of saturated fat in your diet, in order to lower your overall cholesterol. However, a new meta-analysis published in the Annals of Internal Medicine has thrown that whole approach in to question.... The removal of fats from our diet has led to an increase in consumption of carbohydrates and processed low-fat alternatives, which has contributed to record levels of diabetes and obesity.... When you consider that most low-fat or non-fat products are laden with salts, sugars and preservatives, continuing to seek out fat-free alternatives could be doing you more harm than good...." http://time.com/2861540/fat-and-carbs-diet-guidelines/


7 December 2014: "The men who made us fat" - UK documentary

At a dinner party last night, this documentary was pointed out to me. Another guest noted that she had concluded from reading: 80% of being overweight is due to what we eat and 20% to exercise. Have we been mistakenly led by the food-exercise industry into upping our consumption of highly processed foods, supplements and exercise products? Is it just all about calorie control and getting back to basic food (and less sugar and carbohydrates)?

UK made documentary. The documentary maker says: On the obesity disease. Those responsible for a revolution in our eating habits. Decisions made behind closed doors changed food into an addiction. How business changed the shape of the nation. How the food industry choreographs temptation. Those who turned eating food into an epidemic....  Introduction of dietary guidelines: food industry willing to concede on fat, not sugar. Invention of low fat food, sold as better for you. Turning the attack as a business opportunity. Fat was replaced with sugar. Low fat doesn't mean it's not fattening. Snackwells was a marketing triumph.....The increase in portion size...Overconsumption is killing us...  ; BBC Two - The Men Who Made Us Fat - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01k0fs0; youtube vids here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_810093&feature=iv&index=1&list=PLA0E2B2461B536A26&src_vid=6UaUQ0H8crQ&v=iE-H__aIEFE


Rewind TV: The Men Who Made Us Fat; Britain in a Day; Dead Boss by Phil Hogan, Sunday 17 June 2012 00.05 BST; "Jacques Peretti asked why we have become the size of Fiat Puntos....
Watching Jacques Peretti's interesting The Men Who Made Us Fat, it struck me that filming a documentary about obesity in Britain must be much easier than 40 years ago, when being huge was a rarer novelty than having a wooden leg. Today, with a quarter of the population officially the size of a Fiat Punto, it seems all you have to do is put a camera in the high street and wait for someone – perhaps a grazing couple – to heave into view. But this wasn't about finger-pointing. Under an MRI scanner, it turned out that even Peretti himself – a man of no outlandish width – was carrying four to five litres of internal lard. His kidneys, the doctor said, were "swimming" in it. "Is that normal?" Peretti asked, hopefully. It wasn't. It was twice that of a normal fit person (if a fit person can still be described as normal). It seemed that Peretti is what scientists call a Tofi – thin on the outside, fat on the inside. Was no one safe?.... Historically, Britain's problem (we have put on three stone since the 60s) is down to our genetic heritage as hunter-gatherers. We can't help it. We are cavemen with supermarket loyalty cards. In more recent times, though, it has been possible to blame the Americans (ahead of the game in so many ways) for introducing industrial-scale farming in the 70s. Flooding itself with cheap food seemed a good idea at the time and produced the added bonus (or, as we now see it, unintended consequence) of vast surpluses of corn, which in turn led to the miracle food of high-fructose corn syrup.... It was what the American sweet tooth had been aching for. A third cheaper than sugar, corn syrup was soon in everything on the national menu, from ketchup to burger buns to processed meats to pizza toppings. But most of all it was in fizzy drinks, today the single biggest source of calories in the US. In movie theatres and sports arenas, "cups" grew to the point where it is now thought perfectly unremarkable to stagger to your seat with the equivalent of a window-cleaner's bucket. How did everyone get so thirsty? The answer was that corn syrup was not only cheaper than sugar, it was also sweeter. And food manufacturers give generously..... Other opinions were available, with grinning spokespeople from the food companies telling us that having sugar in everything was a healthy part of a balanced diet, which I believe is what they used to say about cigarettes. As much as anything, this film (the first of three) was the story of corporate chicanery, political surrender and cowed scientists whupped into silence. When New York mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced plans to restrict sales of supersize beverages, it may have looked as if he'd just woken from a 30-year sleep ("Gosh, where did all these massive people spring from?"). But it highlighted the success of powerful commercial interests down the decades in keeping the lid on the problem with sugar, while diverting concerns over heart disease uncritically towards saturated fats. In the 80s, "healthy" snacks – yoghurts, spreads and biscuits, low in fat but packed with the natural goodness of sugar – were all the rage. It took us a long time to find out why even joggers were getting red in the face for nothing....." http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2012/jun/17/men-made-us-fat-review