Fed Up Page #10

30 and 40 years ago.

I need your Fruity Pebbles!

Really fruity!

Post Fruity Pebbles cereal,

part of this complete breakfast.

Years from now we're gonna say,

"I can't believe we let them

get away with that."

There is no evidence

that the consumption

of soft drinks in secondary schools

is inconsistent

with sound nutrition science

The argument you're making is to advance

the sales of your soft drinks

with the hopes that these students

will get used to them enough...

I hesitate to use the word

"hooked on 'em" enough.

I'm suggesting, Senator,

that in a well-balanced diet

we all need to consume

two liters of liquid.

Soft drinks can certainly supply

part of that liquid intake

and I would reject entirely any argument

that they are in any way

harmful for you.

Sometimes I just wanna say,

"Don't you have any shame at all?"

Isn't there something

inside of you that says,

"You know,

what we're doing is not right."

They have to know,

just like the tobacco companies.

How could these people

sleep at night for years

knowing they were lying through

their teeth about tobacco and cancer

and yet they just kept pushing

those tobacco products out there?

It's the same way

with big food companies

I just... I don't know how...

I-I don't know how

they can live with themselves.

Soda is the cigarettes

of the 21st century,

and the sooner

we get that clear

the sooner we get rid of

these idiotic arguments about

free speech allows us

to sell things that are poisonous.

The obesity epidemic,

the diseases that fast food places...

hamburgers, soda pop, whatever...

cause.

We've had this information

for decades...

and we've failed to act on it

until now it's catastrophic.

I'm trying...

I'm trying to save my life...

and protect myself from dying

of heart attack, seizures,

anything... diabetes, anything.

I just want y'all to realize...

that y'all killin' yourselves.

'Cause I've already realized it.

I'm just making sure y'all do,

you guys do.

At our current rate

over 95% of all Americans will be

overweight or obese in two decades.

By 2050, one out of every three

Americans will have diabetes.

As we look to

the work force of the future,

where will the soldiers and sailors

and first-responders... cops, firemen...

Where will they come from when we have

a generation of children

that will be physically unfit

and saddled with a lot of disease

that's all preventable.

The financial aspects

of this are staggering.

75% of our health care dollar goes

to the maintenance or treatment

of chronic metabolic disease.

If you think the national debt

is a problem right now,

wait till you see the tsunami

of debt that's coming

from the health care impact of obesity.

It's going to be

an enormous burden

that we are going to be placing

on the shoulders of our children.

I want people to know

that childhood obesity

isn't as simple as TV

and the press make it seem.

And even Mrs. Obama.

It's like, no matter how hard you try,

it's always going to be

an ongoing battle.

When Michelle Obama

launched her "Let's Move" campaign,

she said this isn't about

demonizing any food industry,

which is a very politically

sensible thing to do.

The problem is,

if you want to cure obesity,

you have to demonize

some food industries.

Let's move! Let's move! Let's move!

I think Michelle Obama

has been a wonderful force

in the nation's attempt

to address childhood obesity.

Um, but my guess is that she and

other people in the administration

have to be aware of the lobbying

might of the food industry

and have to go easier on them

than they may want to.

I hope with time, because of the

public support for these initiatives

that the politicians will have

the courage to take on the industry

the way it really needs to happen.

There are other countries now

who have prohibited

junk food marketing to kids

stopped serving junk food in schools,

started taxing soda...

These are things that I'd like to see

us leading the way on.

Instead, we're leading the way on

producing the world's deadliest diet

and basically exporting it

to other countries.

I think the thing that has

frustrated me more than anything else

in my now almost 30-year

campaign against obesity

and trying to get healthful lifestyles.

The most frustrating thing is just

the way the deck is just stacked

against being healthy.

Right now healthy eating

is like swimming upstream.

If you want to eat better,

you have to work so hard

against the food environment

which is always pushing you

to eat more.

I think the attitude

that someone else is gonna change it

is the wrong attitude.

If we want better conditions

each of us has to do something

to make that happen.

We need to come together

as a society to protect our children

just like we have with seat belt laws

and car seat laws.

We're not gonna tell anybody what

they're gonna feed their kids.

We're just gonna try to make it

easier for parents

to do what they already want to do,

which is feed their child

more healthfully.

Some people are already

trying to change the environment

and improve the conditions

for our children.

There are even some kids

who are taking on their own schools.

in order to remove sugar-sweetened

beverages from the cafeteria.

There are also

revolutionary food fighters

who are not waiting

on government action.

I want to tell you

about what is in some of these products.

- Okay, everyone...

- Four scoops of sugar.

They're educating kids

on the toxic effects of sugar.

They are all the same.

Reimagining how you can feed kids

real food on a budget.

By serving the local fresh beans

we're saving about $4,000 a year.

Our business model is to go

into under served areas

into food deserts and try

to make them food oases

and make sure we bring access

to fresh, affordable healthy food.

Many of these places

have seen modest decreases

in their childhood obesity rate.

So we've made some progress.

It's not as much as we'd like,

it's not as much as we need

but therein lies some hope.

This is supposed to be the

first generation of American children

expected to lead shorter lives

than their parents did.

So we have to ask ourselves,

what legacy are we leaving our children?

What kind of conditions are we exposing

them to that would make this come true?

It's a call to action to do something

pretty courageous against this problem.

What if every can of soda

came with a warning label

from the Surgeon General?

What if fast food chains were banned

from all public schools?

What if every time you looked

at a nutrition label

you'd actually see

the percentage next to sugar?

What if every time

a celebrity sold a soft drink,

they also had to pitch

a vegetable?

How would academics improve?

How much more productive

would we become?

How much money and how many lives

could we save?

I think the government

has a leading role to play here.

We just got

a long way to go.

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