Fed Up Page #5

The studies show that your brain

lights up with sugar

just like it does

with cocaine or heroin.

In fact, sugar is eight times

more addictive than cocaine.

So, if you start your baby

early on addictive highly sugary foods,

they're gonna become addicted.

Take a look at formula.

Certain formulas,

especially lactose-free formulas,

they substitute with sucrose.

The food industry knows that the earlier

they introduce these foods to people,

to children, to infants,

the more likely they will have

branded them for the future.

And every generation

of kids born after 1980

has grown up surrounded

by these highly addictive foods.

I see food, I get hungry.

It's... I don't know what it is.

I just...

When I see it, I get hungry.

My stomach's telling me I'm not really

hungry, but my mind's telling me, "Eat."

If you eat foods that are addictive...

You can't just have one line of coke.

You can't just have, you know,

two cigarettes.

You're gonna become an addict.

Once you pop, you can't stop.

We have to understand

that the willpower idea,

that personal responsibility,

doesn't work in the face of addiction.

A lot of times people wonder

why it's so hard to lose weight.

But a big reason might be because

you actually have those foods...

the chips and the brownies and the

cookies and cakes and ice cream...

in your house.

It's just like being an alcoholic.

Do you think an alcoholic could

withstand from drinking that alcohol

if he had a bottle of gin

sitting next to him?

It'd be tough to do.

When you're close to it, you want it.

And it's the same way with food.

We like to think

we make rational decisions

but the fact is our brains

are getting constantly hijacked.

You can't walk, in most cities,

most places

more than a hundred feet

without having your brain

being activated in some way.

Gas stations used to sell gas.

Now they're all convenience stores.

And there's junk food

at the checkout everywhere,

at toy stores, at drugstores.

Go to buy stationery supplies,

linens, electronics...

Every store these days has junk food

right at the eye level of your kids.

And then you add the emotional gloss.

You add other things.

You add favorite cartoon characters.

You make it into entertainment.

You add toys.

And then you add

the carnival-like features.

You add all these

other layers of stimuli.

And in the end, you end up with

one of the great public health

epidemics of our time.

Sometimes it's hard.

I see... chocolate,

and I just want to eat it.

I wish there was a pill I could take

that would just make me thinner.

If a foreign nation was causing

our children to become obese,

that's going to affect their health

and hurt their happiness

cause them to be depressed,

to have poor self-esteem...

If a foreign nation

were doing that to our children,

we'd probably go to war.

We would defend our families.

So why do we accept this

from our own country.

Do you think

the government is behind

when it comes to helping Americans

reduce their sugar intake?

- Yes. I do.

- Why? Why are they doing this?

- I think that...

- Or why aren't they doing more?

I can't answer that,

particularly since corn

has been turned into fructose.

and is a sweetener for soft drinks,

which I don't think

is a good use of corn.

Um... but I think that America

is still insufficiently alert

to the damage we are doing long-term

to our collective health

by too much sugar intake.

In 2002,

the World Health Organization

put together a document

known as TRS-916,

Technical Report Series 916.

And in that document

they say, very specifically

that sugar is a major, if not the cause

of chronic metabolic

disease and obesity.

The W.H.O.

is the division of the United Nations

responsible for setting

global health standards.

The World Health Organization

wanted to really restrict

sugar intake to a level

that scientists recommended.

They recommended no more than

10% of calories

in a diet should come from sugar.

Well, the sugar groups

hit the roof over that one.

There was a very strong push back

in Washington by the industry.

Senators Larry Craig

and John Breau,

a Republican and a Democrat,

asked then secretary of Health

and Human Services Tommy Thompson

to stop the report.

The Bush administration

is resisting a plan.

from the World Health Organization to

fight obesity on an international scale.

The administration says it is too tough

on the food industry.

Tommy Thompson

actually took a jet to Geneva

and basically told

the World Health Organization

that if they published this document

we would withhold the $406 million

that we were going to pay them

as our contribution to the W.H.O.

In other words, we extorted

the W.H.O. to bury this document.

The sugar recommendation was deleted

from most

World Health Organization reports.

going forward up to this very day.

Lobbyists

for the sugar industry

recommended that 25% of calories

in your daily diet

should come from sugar,

two and a half times

the W.H.O. recommendation.

While food nutrition labels

list government-recommended

daily amounts of various nutrients,

today when you look

on any food labels,

you will not find sugar listed with a

percentage for the daily recommendation.

The question is whether

or not our government

has been complacent or even

complicit with this food debacle.

And the answer is absolutely.

The sugar industry's

extraordinarily powerful

and there's a lot of money involved.

We have a food industry

that's feeding America

mostly highly processed, sugary foods

that are killing us...

that are making us fat and sick.

This is the fundamental problem that

nobody's talking about in the society.

Thank you, everyone.

We're all here today

because we care deeply

about the health and well-being

of not just these kids up here

but for all kids like them

all across the country.

And clearly we're determined

to finally take on

one of the most serious threats

to their future,

and that's the epidemic of

childhood obesity in America today.

We've got some talented chefs

and nutritionists here

to teach us how to make

healthy breakfasts.

Farmers' markets do more than just

help Americans feed their families

healthy meals, they help...

We're issuing a call to action.

We need you not just to

tweak around the edges,

but to entirely rethink the products

that you're offering.

In the first months

of the Obama administration

she was exhorting the industry to change

its products and to

cut its children's marketing

and to really make substantive

changes that way.

My guess is when the food

industry heard Michelle Obama

launch her Let's Move campaign

they reacted in terror

Our kids don't choose

to make food products

with tons of sugar and sodium

and super-sized portions

and then to have those products marketed

to them everywhere they turn.

That's a terrifying discussion

for the food industry.

So what did they do?

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