That Sugar Film Page #5

it occurred to me that

what is happening to my body

is perhaps a concentrated version

of what has happened here

and in many other

Indigenous communities.

I'd been sugar-free for a long time

and now, by suddenly subjecting

myself to a high-sugar diet,

the effects have been both rapid

and acute.

If immediate action isn't taken

to restore the positive direction

that Mai Wiru was heading in,

then the oldest living culture on earth

is in great danger of disappearing.

Oh, look at that.'

81.2.

- OK, so what's that in...

- 1.6 kilos.

So in a month I've put on five.

Something like that.

- 76.

- You started out at 76, yeah.

Over five kilos.

- Oh, my God.

- What?

Hang on, is that a...

Hang on, don't tell me.

- 91?!

- 91.

So, OK, 7cm.

7cm.

If I keep going for

the next three or four months

at these levels, would I be

knocking on the door of obesity?

Definitely. You haven't got far to go.

I'm eating a lot more than I would.

Um... I'm snacking a lot more

than I would have before.

I find it very hard to feel full.

Not surprising because you're

not eating very much good fats

or proteins.

It's the fat and the protein

that actually helps us feel fuller.

All the low-fat foods that we've

been told are good for us

and that we should be eating

actually tend to be

higher in sugar anyway,

as you know,

and they're not helping us to feel full.

With the effects of sugar

now clearly taking a toll on me,

and having witnessed

its devastation in Amata...

I'm packing.

I needed to talk to some people

that knew a lot more about

the subject than I did.

Have a look behind you.

It's hanging off my cupboard door.

It was time to head to

the cultural capital of convenience,

the mecca of the processed

food and sugar industry,

and the current number-one-ranked

world obesity champion...

Look out, America.

Here comes Sugar Daddy.

So, we're here in America.

Day one, jet lag.

So I just went in to Jamba Juice

and got me one of these.

139 grams of sugar.

I actually need the calculator for this.

That...

that is 34 teaspoons of sugar...

in that drink.

That is nearly my daily

allowance in this cup.

What a great jet lag cure.

Wow, wow, wow, wow.

Now, if I was to eat

the same amount of sugar

that was in that smoothie

but the sugar was in

its original fruit packaging

I would have to eat four peaches,

nine limes,

30 lemons and 30 strawberries.

This might be fine for a bear

about to go into hibernation,

but it can have damaging effects

for a human

who thinks they are making

a healthy choice.

One of the interesting conflicts

today is this idea,

pushed by some of our government...

well-meaning government officials,

that if you could just get

Coca-Colas out of McDonald's

and get the kids to drink fruit

smoothies they'd be healthier.

And yet the fruit smoothies have

just as much sugar as a Coca-Cola.

The first thing I noticed

with American foods

was how difficult it was gonna

be to stay under 40 teaspoons.

It wasn't just the abundance

of sugar in the food

but also the presence of a sweetener

called high fructose corn syrup.

Its primary delivery system

is soft drink,

which adds roughly

4,000 teaspoons a year

to the diet of each American.

People don't actually realise

that high fructose corn syrup and sugar

are virtually identical.

See, corn refiners back in

the 1980s did their best

to make sure that people didn't equate

high fructose corn syrup with sugar.

Flash forward 20 years later,

people are blaming

high fructose corn syrup

for the obesity epidemic.

And now the corn refiners

are desperately trying to say

that they are sugar,

they're no different,

and the sugar industry's going,

"No, you're not.

"You're entirely different."

With sugar and high fructose corn syrup

now in the spotlight,

I notice that companies are using

a range of seductive names

for other fructose-based sweeteners.

Any sugar...

brown sugar, white sugar,

high fructose corn syrup,

fruit juice concentrate

from fruit juice...

equal effect on your health.

Not feeling very well at all today.

Nauseous in my stomach

and had a headache all morning.

And it's interesting,

'cause we're driving through

rural America now,

we're in North Carolina.

It's so hard to get any kind

of decent food.

There are signs that say 'food exit',

but that food is either McDonald's

or Taco Bell or KFC.

It's impossible.

And if you grow up as a kid and this

is your only experience of food

and what food is,

it's little wonder that there's

a massive problem

in this country.

The next stop was

Barbourville, Kentucky.

In the great cola wars of the 1990s,

Pepsi and Coke were

engaged in a fierce battle.

The Pepsi army took a strong foothold

in the state of Kentucky

and their number-one sniper

is the drink Mountain Dew.

In this 1.25-litre bottle

you'll find 37 teaspoons of sugar

and 40% more caffeine than

the same size bottle of Coke.

The people of Kentucky

have understandably had

some problems with their teeth,

and one dentist is doing

something about it.

His name is Edwin Smith.

This is his letterbox,

this is his daughter

and this is him

as a collectable figurine.

Edwin drives around the state

of Kentucky in RVs

he has converted

into mobile dental clinics.

He and his team visit schools,

educate the kids

and treat their teeth.

Early in my practice

I saw these patients who

would have this unusual decay,

brown decay, around the gum line,

usually the front teeth.

Most of these people were

addicted to Mountain Dew,

in particular.

And that's where

we came up with the term

'Mountain Dew mouth'.

I've talked to some kids who say

they may drink 10 a day.

They started drinking it so early that

they don't know when they started.

Mountain Dew will tickle your innards

'cause there's a bang in every bottle.

They take the lid off,

they take a drink.

20 minutes or so, it starts to wear off

and they take another drink.

It takes the oral cavity

about 20 minutes

to cleanse itself naturally with saliva,

so if you're taking a drink

every 20 minutes,

it's as though you're bathing

your teeth in this all day long.

What's the youngest kids that you treat?

Sometimes 3-year-olds,

3-, 4-year-olds that have

a lot of tooth decay.

And those are usually what they

call baby bottle tooth decay,

and that's from having juices

in baby bottles.

Sometimes it's from having soft

drinks in the baby bottles, too.

Do you do the majority

of your treatments in Kentucky?

- Yes. Yeah.

- OK.

It's eastern Kentucky,

the Appalachian region,

the mountains.

That's the poorest region in the state.

It's directly related to poverty.

Yep.

It's pretty common

for people around here

to drink a lot of pop.

Mainly it's Mountain Dew and Pepsi.

This is 17-year-old Larry Hammons.

He's lived in Kentucky all his life.

This is his tatt,

this is his favourite T-shirt

and these are his teeth.

My 18th birthday's in eight days

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