FED UP - The documentary, know more about food!

daydreams_of_pretty

Hey, FED UP is back!

At the risk of getting into another pointless argument about this documentary, I want to point out to OP that if you really pay attention to the information provided in FED UP you will realize that the movie actually makes an excellent case for CICO, but for some reason it goes off on a tangent about sugar.

Basically, you have a situation where the people making the documentary decided that sugar is the culprit behind the obesity epidemic, gathered up a bunch of information/data/evidence, and then built a bridge between the two. What's sad is that it would be a pretty good documentary if they had actually drawn conclusions from the data instead of circling back to "sugar is bad."

For those of you who haven't watched it, it's actually pretty entertaining. The people who did the graphic illustrations did a fabulous job. The cinematography, editing, and music are all fantastic as well. It does have some interesting points that I think could start a great discussion about nutrition, but I've learned from a previous FED UP thread that people for whatever reason are opposed to such discussions. Oh, and I don't mean that I want to discuss sugar being bad (I sugar, too). I just think that we need to have a public discourse about nutrition, exercise, and blah, blah, blah.

kgeyser

Kenda2427 wrote: »

Is it really necessary for people to be so rude when someone posts something that some people may find interesting. We all know science changes constantly and what works for one may not work for others. But there is no need for the snarkiness that prevails on so many of these forums.

When the information they are posting is false, yes, people are going to be sarcastic. Unless you'd like to link us to the scientific research that says processed sugar is immediately turned to fat in the human body.

lemurcat12

Danielle_Husband wrote: »

It does have some interesting points that I think could start a great discussion about nutrition, but I've learned from a previous FED UP thread that people for whatever reason are opposed to such discussions. Oh, and I don't mean that I want to discuss sugar being bad (I sugar, too). I just think that we need to have a public discourse about nutrition, exercise, and blah, blah, blah.

As I said in the prior thread, I don't think anyone is opposed to a discussion about nutrition (is there something that you think we are all missing on that?), and in fact such discussions seem to me to go on at MFP not infrequently, as it's a good forum for it.

The problem is that in the context of this or some other biased documentary with a well-known scapegoat to blame (i.e., sugar), it's hard to get away from the "sugar is the devil, yes or no" line of discussion.

If you'd like to, I'm actually interested.

As I recall before our main disagreement was in how much the general public understands that (a) calories matter; and (b) calories are on food items and make more difference than whether the food item is labeled as "non-fat" or "gluten free" (as I saw some yogurt weirdly labeled just yesterday).

Hmm. Increased time on MFP is making more dubious about (a), I guess (or at least that many people have any understanding how to apply it in their own lives), but I don't blame the food companies for that or think that there's any real way to make it better, as many people seem to prefer to have a scapegoat than to take responsibility, and thus the prevalence of "sugar made me fat" threads.

dbmata

Want to talk about odd labeling? I've seen gluten free sugar, gluten free soap, and even gluten free shirts.

People will fall for anything.

RGv2

In...is everything a documentary these days, no matter how inaccurate or the agenda?

daydreams_of_pretty

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Danielle_Husband wrote: »

It does have some interesting points that I think could start a great discussion about nutrition, but I've learned from a previous FED UP thread that people for whatever reason are opposed to such discussions. Oh, and I don't mean that I want to discuss sugar being bad (I sugar, too). I just think that we need to have a public discourse about nutrition, exercise, and blah, blah, blah.

As I said in the prior thread, I don't think anyone is opposed to a discussion about nutrition (is there something that you think we are all missing on that?), and in fact such discussions seem to me to go on at MFP not infrequently, as it's a good forum for it.

The problem is that in the context of this or some other biased documentary with a well-known scapegoat to blame (i.e., sugar), it's hard to get away from the "sugar is the devil, yes or no" line of discussion.

If you'd like to, I'm actually interested.

As I recall before our main disagreement was in how much the general public understands that (a) calories matter; and (b) calories are on food items and make more difference than whether the food item is labeled as "non-fat" or "gluten free" (as I saw some yogurt weirdly labeled just yesterday).

Hmm. Increased time on MFP is making more dubious about (a), I guess (or at least that many people have any understanding how to apply it in their own lives), but I don't blame the food companies for that or think that there's any real way to make it better, as many people seem to prefer to have a scapegoat than to take responsibility, and thus the prevalence of "sugar made me fat" threads.

I'm not getting into this again. Go back and reread the previous thread. The entire time I was advocating more education/discussion (public) about nutrition. The other part of my argument had to do with food messaging and the current pervasive messages within society that I personally feel would be aided by more public discourse on nutrition/exercise. That is what I was saying, but apparently you did not comprehend that.

We have great discussions here in these forums, but I meant as a society. That is the ENTIRE argument that I made. You and a few others argued with me all day about that (though you were the only one who never figured out what I was actually saying), and yes, you did counter the public discussion/education thing, especially considering the fact that most of the time I was posting just about that.

daydreams_of_pretty

dbmata wrote: »

Want to talk about odd labeling? I've seen gluten free sugar, gluten free soap, and even gluten free shirts.

People will fall for anything.

How dare you attack our corporate overlords who are at no fault for contributing misleading messages regarding food/nutrition into our society for the sake of higher profits!

There, I just summarized what everyone said last time.

I think it's totally cool that companies do whatever to advertise their products, but I think that we as a society should introduce alternative messages regarding food/nutrition (in a public discourse! OMG, it's back) so that dumb people know what's what. That's right, I'm just going to start saying "dumb" people because I DGAF anymore.

daydreams_of_pretty

This is a link to the previous thread for those of you who want to relive the excitement:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1464870/have-you-seen-fed-up-the-documentary/p1

Just FYI, it's not that exciting.

neanderthin

Sugar is pretty much blamed for all negative dietary outcomes, and documentaries like this are taking full advantage of the Barnum and Bailey effect......otherwise know as the sheep effect.

lemurcat12

"Danielle_Husband wrote: »

We have great discussions here in these forums, but I meant as a society. That is the ENTIRE argument that I made. You and a few others argued with me all day about that (though you were the only one who never figured out what I was actually saying), and yes, you did counter the public discussion/education thing, especially considering the fact that most of the time I was posting just about that.

Sigh. I get that, but you can't just say "we should talk about this as a society." If you want to have a discussion about something the only way to do it is, well, to discuss.

And no, I never opposed public discussion. I just pointed out that that means nothing (and won't happen) without specifics. Saying people should be educated about something you think they are ignorant about is all well and good, but the harder question is how, and why will it work? I don't think there's an absence of good education about nutrition, in fact, but it gets lost in the morass of bad information that people often prefer to cling to.

Assuming we basically agree about what the good information is, why decide that I'm the enemy and not try to convince me that there's something helpful that could be done?

kimny72

OP, it's a shame you didn't do a quick forum search for "Fed Up" since you would have found the previous thread and would have known the kind of responses you would be getting.

The amount of sugar in the American diet is a problem because the added sugar increases the calories in everyday items. Before the sugar thing, there was fat added to everyday items, increasing the calories. Now that we are seeing "More Protein!" added to packaged foods, I'm sure 5-10 years from now we will need a new documentary to teach us about the dangers of processed protein.

The lesson? Calories, calories, calories. Know what you are eating.

Thanks guys, now I am going to have to rip open the Talenti Double Dark Chocolate that is hiding in my freezer

lemurcat12

Danielle_Husband wrote: »

How dare you attack our corporate overlords who are at no fault for contributing misleading messages regarding food/nutrition into our society for the sake of higher profits!

Here's the more accurate rendition:

People don't think that they are eating healthier by buying "low fat" labeled products mainly because companies advertise products as "low fat." Instead, companies are latching onto pre-existing beliefs (and of course they are doing so to try to make a buck) that low fat is healthier.

You can see this now, with how companies have latched onto the anti sugar and, especially, anti gluten trends, with such things as (as I mentioned above) gluten free yogurt.

My point, and I believe that of some others, was not that companies are immune from criticism (I identified some other areas where I think regulatory capture was more relevant), but that you are wrongly giving them the majority of the credit for the dumb low fat craze, the current gluten free craze, etc. The real source seems to be "experts" (seriously, just read the US News list for some continuing anti fat fear), plus--more significantly--all kinds of trendy pop diet information. It's obviously easier for people to latch onto "anti fat" that doesn't require them to fundamentally change their ways of eating or, in some cases, to make food into a religion (with clean and unclean foods) than to do the boring work of constructing a healthy diet of appropriate calories. (Something that I find quite possible despite being ruled by corporate overlords and all.)

daydreams_of_pretty

lemurcat12 wrote: »

"Danielle_Husband wrote: »

We have great discussions here in these forums, but I meant as a society. That is the ENTIRE argument that I made. You and a few others argued with me all day about that (though you were the only one who never figured out what I was actually saying), and yes, you did counter the public discussion/education thing, especially considering the fact that most of the time I was posting just about that.

Sigh. I get that, but you can't just say "we should talk about this as a society." If you want to have a discussion about something the only way to do it is, well, to discuss.

And no, I never opposed public discussion. I just pointed out that that means nothing (and won't happen) without specifics. Saying people should be educated about something you think they are ignorant about is all well and good, but the harder question is how, and why will it work? I don't think there's an absence of good education about nutrition, in fact, but it gets lost in the morass of bad information that people often prefer to cling to.

Assuming we basically agree about what the good information is, why decide that I'm the enemy and not try to convince me that there's something helpful that could be done?

Um, I didn't label you "the enemy." You argued with me.

I don't think that there is one right answer or one "good" set of information that should be disseminated to everyone, which I clearly stated numerous times in the previous thread. I also never said that we had to engage in an actionable plan to eradicate obesity.

We were discussing a topic, in this case it was the documentary FED UP. I approached that discussion as a person who actually watched the movie, which, considering the fact that the thread was asking if people had watched it, makes more sense than those of you who showed up to argue about it when you hadn't even watched it.

My personal opinion is that it makes sense to watch/read/etc things that offer information about topics, even if you don't agree with the stance. It's how you have a well-rounded, objective understanding of things. It's how you grow as a person.

I approached the original discussion with the intention of pointing out that the documentary can provide discussion points and it all snowballed from there.

I will not argue with you about this again. Reread the thread.

SingRunTing

kimny72 wrote: »

The amount of sugar in the American diet is a problem because the added sugar increases the calories in everyday items.

This is spot on. It's not "sugar is the devil, avoid sugar", it's "pay attention to what you're eating or you will be consuming too many calories".

The sugar blaming trend reminds me of the clean eating trend. People think that if they are eating "healthy", they will lose weight.

ETA:
I'm on team "stop blaming sugar", but I do think that adding a ton of sugar into food isn't great. Do they really need to add excessive amounts of sugar to pasta sauce (as an example)? I know that a little may be needed, but it just seems too much. Reducing the extra sugar in food may help with the obesity rates just because people would get fewer calories eating the same food they are currently eating.

I know this makes me seem wishy-washy. I really do believe in personal accountability and CICO. However, plenty of people don't care what they are eating and I feel bad for the kids in the crossfire. Just like the "low fat" trend should be faded out, the "add a ton of sugar" trend should be faded out.

daydreams_of_pretty

Here we go.

First, you have conceded that you do not oppose public discourse/discussion/education, though you argued with me about it for hours in the other thread. (We'll just ignore that.)

lemurcat12 wrote: »

If you want to have a discussion about something the only way to do it is, well, to discuss.

And no, I never opposed public discussion.

That leaves us with the constant back and forth on the food messaging. This back and forth nonsense, while exhausting, is still a discussion.

On the one hand, I think that food messaging is contributing to the obesity problem based on articles/data/etc that I have read/viewed/etc. Though I believe this, I expressed that I did not think that everyone had to agree with me and that we should instead focus on introducing alternative messages into society. (Again, this was a general viewpoint, not an action plan. If you'll recall, some of the other posters asked about my opinions on the role of government, and I explained that I was just talking about public discussion/education in general terms.) While I do think that food companies disseminate these types of misleading messages, I never said that they were limited to food companies, which I do not believe. I do, however, think that food companies work hard to maintain and exploit these messages. That's not really important, though.

On the other hand, you think that food messages are largely to blame on other entities besides food companies and that food companies just take advantage of the messaging already out there to sell their products. Here is your latest presentation of that argument:

lemurcat12 wrote: »

People don't think that they are eating healthier by buying "low fat" labeled products mainly because companies advertise products as "low fat." Instead, companies are latching onto pre-existing beliefs (and of course they are doing so to try to make a buck) that low fat is healthier.

You can see this now, with how companies have latched onto the anti sugar and, especially, anti gluten trends, with such things as (as I mentioned above) gluten free yogurt.

My point, and I believe that of some others, was not that companies are immune from criticism (I identified some other areas where I think regulatory capture was more relevant), but that you are wrongly giving them the majority of the credit for the dumb low fat craze, the current gluten free craze, etc. The real source seems to be "experts" (seriously, just read the US News list for some continuing anti fat fear), plus--more significantly--all kinds of trendy pop diet information. It's obviously easier for people to latch onto "anti fat" that doesn't require them to fundamentally change their ways of eating or, in some cases, to make food into a religion (with clean and unclean foods) than to do the boring work of constructing a healthy diet of appropriate calories. (Something that I find quite possible despite being ruled by corporate overlords and all.)

Do you know where this leaves us?

The resolution of this particular discussion between the two of us.

I don't care if you agree with me. It doesn't matter. I'm not here to convince anyone to agree with me on theoretical problem solving that doesn't even matter in the real world. You have your opinion, and I have mine.

Guess what our opinions are. They are two alternative food-related messages. I redirect you to my earlier discussion points for my opinions on varied alternative food messages.

For some reason, you keep arguing with me about this when I've stated numerous times that I don't think that my way is the only way and that I think that we should have numerous and varied food related messages in our society. (Also, I'm not entirely sure that I even have a "way." I'm an extremely objective person, to the point that it irritates people in my real life.)

stealthq

chrissywelsh10 wrote: »

youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

This is my last word on sugar...
There are numerous diet fads. "Eat this; don't eat that."
I do not want to contribute to that fashion.

However, this MD/PhD presents compelling evidence that the eating of refined sugar is not only largely responsible for the epidemic of obesity in the US, but explains the physiological mechanisms by which refined sugar messes with your body. It is fascinating from a scientific perspective if nothing else. It might also change the way you think about what you eat.

There is never a final word on medical research. (Perhaps you have noticed that MDs tend to be really crappy scientists. Fortunately, this guy is not just an MD.) But I find the arguments herein to be very interesting at least.

--> Side note: there is an interesting section on the molecular make-up of the different sugars for those interested.

I realize that this person has bailed on this post, but for anyone else reading:

It isn't just MDs that tend to be lousy scientists (and who can blame them, they usually have no research training). MD/PhDs are also typically lousy scientists. Their research training typically consists of joining a lab and following the Prinicipal Investigator's instructions for a couple of years. Makes a decent lab tech, but not a scientist. There are exceptions where the person did a full MD and a full PhD non-concurrently, but it is nowhere near the norm.

And before anyone thinks that I am biased, I would say that the majority of PhDs are not particularly rigorous scientists, either. Some don't have the critical mind. Others can't get the funding to really produce well-thought out work. Getting samples can be difficult and analyzing them is expensive. It's produced a culture where everyone tries to get away with the absolute minimum and research centers around what you can fudge past the grant committees and journal reviewers. Turns out, that's quite a bit of poor work.

Take home lesson - don't assume that if a study's in a scientific journal that it's necessarily well done. Ditto if the work is done by a 'big name'. They're sometimes the worst culprits. Read it all with a skeptic's eye.

lemurcat12

Danielle_Husband wrote: »

Um, I didn't label you "the enemy." You argued with me.

You seem upset about that. As it is, I am not even sure how we disagree on anything substantial, and I'm not trying to argue with you now. I am actually interested in the topic of how one could increase nutritional literacy, even if I'm not wildly hopeful.

I don't think that there is one right answer or one "good" set of information that should be disseminated to everyone, which I clearly stated numerous times in the previous thread. I also never said that we had to engage in an actionable plan to eradicate obesity.

Okay. Saying that there's a problem with misinformation and that we should have a public discussion to counter that misinformation does sound like you are suggesting that there is some right information that should be disseminated and that it would help with the obesity problem. But okay.

We were discussing a topic, in this case it was the documentary FED UP. I approached that discussion as a person who actually watched the movie, which, considering the fact that the thread was asking if people had watched it, makes more sense than those of you who showed up to argue about it when you hadn't even watched it.

My personal opinion is that it makes sense to watch/read/etc things that offer information about topics, even if you don't agree with the stance. It's how you have a well-rounded, objective understanding of things. It's how you grow as a person.

To a certain extent I agree with this, and do. But obviously there is more stuff out there to read than one person can, and you have to make educated choices about what is worth your while. I'm actually more likely to watch a documentary that I disagree with on nutrition to see if I might learn something, but I'm even more likely to read something for that same reason--which I think is likely to be less manipulative--and for the sake of the discussions here I think we have enough information to enter into discussion based on what the people talking the movie up repeat from it or have "learned" from it.

You seem bothered that people are dismissive of the movie because it's a noble effort to start a discussion or some such, but I don't think that makes it immune from criticism, and the ideas in particular can be criticized, even by those who did not see the movie. They are either based in fact or not.

I approached the original discussion with the intention of pointing out that the documentary can provide discussion points and it all snowballed from there.

I apologize if I missed this given the overall context of that discussion, and I certainly don't think that's a terrible way to approach it. We may still disagree on the merits even of the points you liked from the movie, but as I said before the bigger issue is that it keeps being brought up here as evidence that sugar makes people fat, which, ironically, I see as simply the new version of the fat makes you fat thing that we both seem to agree has been abused and led to negative results.

lemurcat12

SingRunTing wrote: »

Do they really need to add excessive amounts of sugar to pasta sauce (as an example)? I know that a little may be needed, but it just seems too much.

I'm curious how much is really added per serving. Some of the sugar is from tomatoes, and I don't recall the overall calories in plain pasta sauce being that high, so I'd be curious to compare it with some homemade in terms of calories and sugar. (I don't add sugar myself, but it's a common thing to do, although not much.)

Of course, I'm a snob about pasta sauce and can't understand people buying it jarred anyway.

My guess, though, is that of the calories in your typical pasta meal, those that happen to come from added sugar in pasta sauce are minimal.

daydreams_of_pretty

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Danielle_Husband wrote: »

Um, I didn't label you "the enemy." You argued with me.

You seem upset about that. As it is, I am not even sure how we disagree on anything substantial, and I'm not trying to argue with you now. I am actually interested in the topic of how one could increase nutritional literacy, even if I'm not wildly hopeful.

I don't think that there is one right answer or one "good" set of information that should be disseminated to everyone, which I clearly stated numerous times in the previous thread. I also never said that we had to engage in an actionable plan to eradicate obesity.

Okay. Saying that there's a problem with misinformation and that we should have a public discussion to counter that misinformation does sound like you are suggesting that there is some right information that should be disseminated and that it would help with the obesity problem. But okay.

We were discussing a topic, in this case it was the documentary FED UP. I approached that discussion as a person who actually watched the movie, which, considering the fact that the thread was asking if people had watched it, makes more sense than those of you who showed up to argue about it when you hadn't even watched it.

My personal opinion is that it makes sense to watch/read/etc things that offer information about topics, even if you don't agree with the stance. It's how you have a well-rounded, objective understanding of things. It's how you grow as a person.

To a certain extent I agree with this, and do. But obviously there is more stuff out there to read than one person can, and you have to make educated choices about what is worth your while. I'm actually more likely to watch a documentary that I disagree with on nutrition to see if I might learn something, but I'm even more likely to read something for that same reason--which I think is likely to be less manipulative--and for the sake of the discussions here I think we have enough information to enter into discussion based on what the people talking the movie up repeat from it or have "learned" from it.

You seem bothered that people are dismissive of the movie because it's a noble effort to start a discussion or some such, but I don't think that makes it immune from criticism, and the ideas in particular can be criticized, even by those who did not see the movie. They are either based in fact or not.

I approached the original discussion with the intention of pointing out that the documentary can provide discussion points and it all snowballed from there.

I apologize if I missed this given the overall context of that discussion, and I certainly don't think that's a terrible way to approach it. We may still disagree on the merits even of the points you liked from the movie, but as I said before the bigger issue is that it keeps being brought up here as evidence that sugar makes people fat, which, ironically, I see as simply the new version of the fat makes you fat thing that we both seem to agree has been abused and led to negative results.

I don't have a problem with people hating or dismissing the documentary or think it's immune to criticism. I actually criticized it a lot myself (in both threads) because it draws erroneous conclusions about sugar.

What has bothered me is that you have poor reading comprehension skills and spent an entire day arguing with me on the last thread when you don't even disagree with me because you assumed that I was pro documentary and you were neg documentary when that was never the case. (You actually flat out said this in the previous thread. Go back and check it out.)

If you want to argue pointlessly about sugar, then there are plenty of sugar haters in this forum who would be happy to oblige you. I am not one of them.