201) Fed Up (2014)
An examination of America’s obesity epidemic and the food industry’s role in aggravating it
8/10 – This documentary has a clear agenda, and as with most documentaries, it presents the facts to support their way of thinking. It might not display all the facts but it’s aim is always clear whether it’s to inform the masses about the growing poverty in America and it’s relationship with food, to eat only vegetables because meat if bad for you or to spout off about raw milk for 90 minutes. I suppose it is difficult to create what would appear to be a balanced documentary, when the people and organisations opposing your point of view refuse outright to speak to you. Herein lies the problem with Fed Up…
‘Fed Up’, in it’s simplest terms it is a documentary against sugar and a film created to highlight the misconceptions regarding ‘healthy’ or ‘low calorie’ food. Having watched the other documentaries linked above, I felt like this one came full circle. It was well put together, displayed facts clearly and concisely so that a variety of age ranges could understand them, and above all else it does make you rethink your existing diet.
Simple things such as “a calorie is not a calorie” should be common knowledge. Of course having 100 grams of coke compared to 100 grams of almonds is going to give you different nutritional value above and beyond the calorie count, but for many this might not be common knowledge. We are given an insight into overweight kids opting for “low calorie” options of their favourite foods, eating cheeseburgers and pizza from their pizza hut sponsored school cafeteria and then weeping uncontrollably as they wonder why the weight isn’t falling off. It’s not down to anything they are consciously doing, it boils down to misinformation and available options. It can’t help when tomato sauce on a pizza and fries are considered vegetables.
It won’t immediately change much in terms of legislation, but if each person who see’s it takes it on board, and becomes just a little more conscious about what is in their processed and ‘healthy’ foods, then it would have done it’s job. If it gets shared about and promoted, then it’s success will grow. It’s here to inform and while I’m fairly sure the obesity crisis in America isn’t just down to ‘too much sugar’ (Poverty, and Health Care costs much play a part in this – not to mention having the time to prepare healthy meals from scratch outside of work/school?), but by eliminating that particular element of your diet, in turn many of the other nutritional factors in causing obesity will be removed from the diet also.
Highly recommended, but take it with a pinch of salt…
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