Ivonne Perez

 Lifespan Development, PSYCH 9

Professor Tifany Moreira

May 6, 2021 2021

Fed up documentary

The documentary Fed Up is researching the epidemic of obesity, the focus is on adolescent

obesity. This documentary not only raises awareness but also provides concrete facts describing

the cause of obesity. It presents many perspectives on the food industry- from customers

themselves, the political perspective, and the producer perspective. In this documentary gets

stated that our country’s obesity problem lies in our nation: our food industry. Food industries

make us think we are the problem for weight gain, because of this stereotype people blindly

follow the food industry’s suggestions and guidelines, believing that they are doing the right

thing. This documentary brings the point that it is not always the problem with us, but the

problem lies within what our food industries tell us is “HEALTHY”.

Healthy food shopping is hard these days, because of store layout (healthy foods are next to

shelve with processed foods), intentional food displays, unhealthy food are right by cash

registers right in front of us. About 600 thousand new “Less Fat”, “Low Fat” and “Healthier”

food products appear in grocery store shelves every year, and 80 percent of those new products

contain added sugar. In the documentary, Robert Lusting explains for added sugar. By removing

fats from food, it loses its flavor and taste. To make this “Lowe Fat”, foods taste better and

people would buy them, food industries need to replace fat with sugar, they need to increase
sugar percentage in this food. (Fed Up). Sugar is dangerously addictive. As facts state, between

the years of 1977 and 2000, Americans have doubled their intake of sugar. (Fed Up).

Another fact what the documentary points out is an argument that fitness and obesity are

doubling together. Statistics show that gym memberships and diet fads have doubled, obesity has

followed along with it. (Fed Up). Question is, should obesity decrease if the numbers of gym

memberships increase and people are exercising more? Dr. Mark Hyman states that 2 out of 3

Americans are overweight. The documentary explains the reason it is like that. That people need

to burn the number of calories they intake by exercise is false. Margo Wooton, a health advocate,

states an example, to burn calories what we consume by drinking one twenty-ounce soda,

adolescence would need to bike for one hour and fifteen minutes. That shows that it’s impossible

to burn all calories that we consume by exercising.

Another misconception what the documentary paid attention is that eating healthy is

expensive. We know fast foods as a convenience and cheap food, we can agree it can be a

convenience but is it cheaper. In the documentary, they compared the price of home cook meals

for the entire family versus fast food. The home cooked meal was less expensive as fast-food

meal. (Fed Up).

As obesity raises the health problems increase. The risk of heart attack, high blood

pressure, stroke is the only couple of health problems what is associated with obesity. It is sad to

think that a 12-year-old child needs to worry about these health problems because of being

obese, but unfortunately, it is today’s reality. The obesity epidemic started in 1977, around the

same time when the “Lowe Fat and Fat-Free” trend started. By the year 2010, there were 57,638

cases of type II diabetes in adolescence (Fed Up). Based on the Center for Disease Control and

Prevention data: “of the estimated 23 million people with diagnosed diabetes in 2015, about
193,000 were children and adolescents younger the age of 20.” As we can see numbers

drastically keep rising.

There are simple ways how we can contribute to help lower obesity rates. The

documentary successfully convinces viewers that there are misconceptions about obesity that

have been causing weight gain and that the corruption in food industries is mostly one of the

primary sources causing the fatal problem. To increase positive changes in people's lifestyle and

diet, people need to become more educated about facts of food industries, and they are

misleading facts. We need to change the way how we produce and consume foods. Changes will

not happen overnight, it will take time, but even minor changes today, can lead to big changes in

the future.