The men who made us fat

BigRedgw2010

Nope.

My overeating and sitting my *kitten* on the couch is what made me fat. Since nobody held me down and shoved food into my mouth, I won't watch anything that points blame at anyone else.

Amen!!!

skoshness

:laugh:

cloud2011

It was on BBC 2 on the 14.6.12 at 9pm
It's not really pointing the finger.. The first episode is about the invention of high fructose corn syrup and other new foods eg. frozen foods, but it focuses more on the cultural changes in the world around food. Such as snacking and eating more pre-prepared food. Also about how there are a lot of us that have no idea about food and what is in it. There is also some science in it, about the physical and mental affects on the body. I think that it was pretty well rounded. (is not good at explaining it)
[/quote

It's such an interesting topic. After the food shortages and hunger of WWII, processed and corporate food was supposed to be a boon to housewives especially. As children of immigrants, both of my parents and lived through the Depression (in US) . So, at one time, everything that is being critiqued now was seen as innovative and helpful. I actually remember being told that sugar would give you extra energy! (I'm 49 now so that was a while ago).

nickiog

Some men contributed to my weight gain. Like Uncle Ben and Chef Boyardee. But so did Mrs Butterworth and Auntie Anne.

yes... and ben & jerry , the nesquick bunny , colonel sanders, dr. pepper,sara lee, mrs fields....*kitten*...

gatecityradio

I made myself overweight.

deadstarsunburn

Sounds interesting, you're right that our food and acceptance of huge portions is out of control as well as how society has changed to allow for morbidly obese people to feel like there's nothing wrong with being that over weight.

You can tell who read what you're actually talking about and who didn't lol. ^^^^

fajmanj

You remind me of a lecture in my Rhetorical Criticism course (I'm a grad student of communication studies). One of the area's of expertise that this professor specializes in, is environmental criticism. That area of course relates to agriculture. Anyway, according to this professor HFCS is one of the top invention along with figuring out how to effectively refine oil that has done the environment and human race some of the most harm in the last roughly 150 years. While the corn industry likes us to believe it's the same as corn sugar, it does have a higher tendency to be stored as fat. As it's become used in more and more foods, and have made foods possible that weren't 50 years ago, it has effect our health.

Granted self-control is a factor, when it comes not to eating too much. However, being fully aware of how different products react within the body is a significant part of the battle.

magerum

No one made you fat but yourself. I guess you could put some blame on who raised you...if you were an overweight child. Even then, it's still really ones own responsibility.

LiviLou2011

<

---

the woman that made me fat..and is now trying hard to make me unfat lol

ChristineS_51

When I saw the title of this my immediate reaction was to think how dare people blame others for their own weight issues! But after reading the explanation of the programme's content, I will be watching out for it if it comes here to Australia.

Having highly processed foods increases the likelihood of us gaining weight; eating fresh, home prepared, etc the "old fashioned" way before these various food processing were invented is the way to go.

I heard something interesting the other day about bread - this may have been mentioned in the programme? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process

skoshness

I just watched it, found it really interesting, it makes me angry that the big food corporations have no interest in giving people healthy food, it's all about profit, so they found substances to use eg. Corn syrup that is highly addictive and messes with the production of lectin in the body that tells you when you've had enough to eat. They put high amounts of sugar in "low fat healthy" foods, it's obscene

oops that should have been leptin not lectin

BeautifulArtemis

My husband destroys me on the weekends!

Florawanda

I saw the second part of the programme and read the article in the Guardian that preceded it, and would echo what has been said by those who have actually seen the programme.

One of the scary things the programme reported was that when the danger to health of putting too much sugar/corn syrup into processed foods was being raised by nutritionists who wanted the United Nations/World Health Organisation to put a limit on the percentage of sugar included in processed foods, the sugar industry put pressure on the UN to say they would press for a US grant to be withheld unless the proposal was withdrawn (think that was what the programme said happened). The programme said it was reminiscent of how the tobacco industry rubbished the evidence that there was a link between smoking and cancer, and lobbied the governments (of both US and UK) not to put controls on tobacco.

So the message really is to read the nutrition information really carefully before you choose to buy or eat!

JesterMFP

I've seen the first part and found it very interesting. The title of the programme is provocative and misleading. It's not about individual responsiblity or lack therof, it's about epidemiology and the possible social, political and economic factors in the massive rise in obesity levels.

Yes, I made me fat: no one else put that food in my mouth (not in the last 3 decades anyway) but that fact has nothing to do with the obesity epidemic, which is what the programme's about.

mandylooo

It was on BBC 2 on the 14.6.12 at 9pm
It's not really pointing the finger.. The first episode is about the invention of high fructose corn syrup and other new foods eg. frozen foods, but it focuses more on the cultural changes in the world around food. Such as snacking and eating more pre-prepared food. Also about how there are a lot of us that have no idea about food and what is in it. There is also some science in it, about the physical and mental affects on the body. I think that it was pretty well rounded. (is not good at explaining it)

Interesting concept........although I can't place the *blame* on any one person but myself,
those who've engineered food items like HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) have made a HUGE (no pun intended) impact
on the health of the consumer- to the negative side.

in regards to HFCS> I read up on the subject, and make it a point to steer clear of it as much as possible- just because I can find food items WITHOUT it, so I prefer to err on the safer side.
Don't FREAK out IF I eat it on occasion, but in the foods I buy, I choose NOT to eat it.
Even the hubs- who doesn't care what he eats- is losing belly fat because it's not in our main food supply anymore.
That confirms to me I'm making the right choice in that dep't.

So, NO, the guy(s) who engineered HFCS might not have "made me fat" but they played a role in it.

And I'd like to see him go broke now.
That's a fair payback I think.

That's a reasonably fair assessment. There's a lot to be said for accepting responsibility for yourself, but we don't live in vacuums so there are always external influences. Aggressive and misleading marketing will have an impact as much as the food industry would like to blame its victims.