Fed Up Page #9

Um, you know...

I guess I'm still

kind of against it.

Thing could go wrong, and...

then I wouldn't have my Joe.

That wouldn't be right.

I would feel that one.

It's the people who are least able

to know what's good

for their health..

who are the ones

that certain industries cater to

and try to focus

their advertising toward.

We're selling these products

to the people who are most vulnerable

and they're also the people that society

has to provide health care for

because they don't have

the money to do it themselves.

I didn't even want to be at the

hospital and see him going through that.

It sounds selfish, but, um...

It was hard.

But, uh, he-he's...

a tough little guy.

Yeah.

There's probably a limited role

for gastric bypass, or bariatric surgery

in the most extreme circumstance

to avoid life-threatening complication.

But what does it say

about our society

if we would rather send children

to such mutilating procedures

but yet lack the political will

to properly fund school nutrition

and ban junk food advertising

to children.

It reflects a systematic

political failure.

We're the richest society

in the world.

We've failed because we've placed

private profit and special interests

ahead of public health.

This is

a vitality medical center.

Fixing to get our body scans.

It's hard for us

teenagers to try to be healthy

'cause you see all your friends

eating fattening chili cheese fries

and nachos

and all this fattening fried chicken

and all these fattening, greasy foods,

and they're skinny,

and they look good.

My brother can eat all he wants

and still be skinny,

and I look at him and say,

"Well, he can do it. Why can't I?"

And that... I hold on to that.

And that's how

I-I don't lose weight.

Many people think that

if you're thin, you're healthy

but that's not

necessarily true.

You can be fat on the inside

and skinny on the outside

or metabolically obese

normal weight.

It's very dangerous, and it leads to all

the same consequences as being fat,

such as heart attacks, strokes, cancer,

dementia and diabetes.

Dr. Jimmy Bell, who is

a neuroimager in London, England,

coined the term "Tofi"...

T-O-F-I.

Thin on the outside,

fat on the inside.

Because when you slide somebody into an

M.R.I. and you actually visualize

the fat they might as well be obese.

- There! X-ray!

- Yeah.

Nuke sign.

Brady and his brothers went

to the doctor for DEXA scans,

a type of X-ray that measures

internal body fat.

The beauty of it is,

you can see where the fat is.

Because a lot of fat is distributed

in different places

and the worst fat

is the belly fat.

Kids who are normal weight should be

between 10 and 20% belly fat.

Brady's results

were by far the worst...

47% of his body is fat,

most of it in his belly,

which is 60% fat.

The belly fat

is a dangerous, lethal fat.

And his insulin levels are high.

The insulin is

the fat storage hormone.

While his youngest brother,

Nicholas, had normal results,

10-year-old Chandler

had 22% belly fat

and the 19-year-old,

Joseph, had 28%.

Almost all of these skinny-fat

kids are prediabetic.

Even though the junk food

doesn't make them fat, necessarily,

it makes them sick.

The question is, do you have it?

You might, and you don't know.

Based on the statistics

we know that

30% of America is obese.

Let's talk about

the thin people.

Up to 40% of these people

have the same metabolic dysfunction.

They're just not obese.

So when you do the math, that's

more than half the U.S. population.

This is not just

a problem of the obese.

This is a problem of everybody.

There are so many industries

that make profits

off of people being unhealthy

that it's in their interest to have

people continue to be unhealthy.

And so that's why you don't see

an enormous national effort

to try to improve the quality

of the American diet

or people's food choices.

Is that why you see

health insurance companies

buying stock in fast food companies?

That is exactly why you see

health insurance companies

buying stock

in fast food companies?

They're just

covering their bets.

Unless we address this as a

society and stop blaming the fat person,

we're gonna be in big trouble.

We're gonna have

huge health consequences

and huge economic consequences,

as well.

We've been down

this road before.

This isn't the first time our children

have been sold a bill of goods

that leads to addiction

and disease.

What's been the great

public health success to date?

It's tobacco.

Smooth and fresh

Is the Newport taste

We used to view

the cigarette as our friend,

something that was sexy, that was

glamorous, something that we wanted.

What did we do with tobacco?

We demonized the tobacco industry.

We changed how

we perceived that product.

We knew as early as 1950

that there was a link

between smoking and lung cancer.

Do you swear that the testimony

you are about to give

is the truth, the whole truth

and nothing but the truth?

I do.

But Big Tobacco would deny

the science for the next 50 years.

Cigarettes and nicotine

clearly do not meet

the classic definitions

of addiction.

The public finally saw

that they were doing deceptive

and misleading things

and so we took them on.

Government took them on.

The media took them on.

It's been 30 years since the first

report linked smoking and cancer.

There's disturbing news

about teenagers and smoking.

The U.S. was the first

to require warning labels

on every cigarette pack.

But we didn't stop there.

A number of decades ago

there was something around

called the Fairness Doctrine and

for every tobacco ad that got run

the networks had to free up time

for anti-tobacco advertisement.

Smoke now, pay later.

Whatever you do,

just don't smoke.

The tobacco industry found

it was getting battered by these

advertisements and said

we will voluntarily take

our advertising off television.

Come to where the flavor is.

It wasn't long before

smoking ads were removed

from almost all public space.

And with greater public awareness

smoking was banned

from all airlines.

And as early as 1975

individual states began regulating

smoking in public places

and taxing packs of cigarettes.

After we banned it,

all of Western Europe went smoke-free.

You would tell me in a million years

the Irish, the Italians,

the Spanish, the English, the French...

they don't smoke indoors anymore.

Today we view

the cigarette for what it is,

a deadly, disgusting, addictive product.

As a result of this

critical change in perception,

the number of American high schoolers

who smoke has been cut in half

in just the last 20 years.

Where would we be

if we hadn't acted?

The Flintstones

has been brought to you by Winston,

America's best-selling,

best-tasting filter cigarette.

Winston tastes good

like a cigarette should

Junk food companies are acting

very much like tobacco companies did

Rate this script:5.0 / 1 vote