HBO did a four part miniseries called The Weight of The Nation which is a sobering look at the health consequences of overweight and obesity. I spent the better part of yesterday watching it with increasing horror.
This documentary is endorsed by the FDA and the USDA. The recommendations are the same ones any decent MD would give you and there is no mention of the havoc created by food allergies, dairy, excessive consumption of feedlot animals or food sensitivities. The Esseltyn diet never comes up. The benefits of short fasts are covered quickly.
Which in many ways makes it even more worth watching since people who think veganism or organic food or sugar free eating or avoiding gluten are extreme choices will find little to argue with here. The four 75 minute episodes are all availale on YouTube so you can watch them for free on your phone while commuting or on a laptop or iPad while cleaning up the kitchen at night (which is when I do all my video watching). The basic recommendations around weight loss are excellent, and if you have family members who still doubt the power of food to determine health, this is a great place for them to start. The message is clear and sobering.
My son is six and he watched them with me. There are some graphic slides of fatty liver and a clogged aorta as well as some surgical scars. They might be too graphic for some children. Mine just happens to be the sort of child who enjoys anatomy.
The first episode is one you will want to watch sitting down. There are a lot of graphics and a lot of the information is on black and white slides that need to be read. This one is filled with sobering statistics on why this is a national crisis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pEkCbqN4uo
The second episode is all about success stories of people who have lost a lot of weight in a variety of ways and it reiterates the importance of diet and the fact that the true role of exercise is mood improvement and stress reduction. Exercise is great for maintenance but exercise alone will not take off weight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLv0Vsegmoo&feature=relmfu
The third episode is about children and teens it is very upsetting. It made me grateful for our food sensitivities because it makes eating school lunch impossible. You may want to watch it with your children if they have concerns about their own weight. I wish I could force teen boys to watch it. You may want to watch it alone first. Especially if you let your kids drink Gatorade when they are not ill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T24B6T-hp0E&feature=relmfu
The fourth episode gets at my single biggest complaint about federal spending. The subsidies for corn, soy and grains is causing the prices to be unnaturally low so we are subsidizing this with our taxes. I am happy to pay taxes for schools and police and firefighters. I am not happy to subsidize Monsanto. We need to have our farmers grow apples and radishes again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmcZRgWBdwQ&feature=relmfu
