Fed Up

Another documentary featured at the Hot Docs Film Festival that I unfortunately didn’t get to see, Fed Up, posits that sugar is the main reason for rising obesity rates.  This film comes from the producer of An Inconvenient Truth, Laurie Lennard, and directed by Stephanie Soechtig, producer of GMO OMG and Tapped, two other health-based documentaries. Check out the trailer here: I don’t think it’s exactly a big conspiracy theory, and no one is forcing you to drink Coke, but it’s still good that health issues are being talked about. It’s also good to point out that private profit is being consistently placed above health concerns, and there are always ways in which companies and the government can shift this practice. Some scary statistics unearthed by Fed Up:

• 80% of 600,000 food products in America have added sugar
• Over 95% of Americans will be overweight or obese in two decades
• If nothing is done, 1/3 of adults will have diabetes by 2050
• Your brain reacts to sugar much like it does to cocaine and heroin

We know that sugar is bad for you, this documentary doesn’t unearth a miraculous new fact about sugar’s effects, but it does remind the viewer of these effects, as well as highlight what can be done to fix this sugar indoctrination from the media.