infohedon:

Fat Head Trailer (via FatHeadMovie)

Now on Hulu, I really liked this documentary.  Fat Head is the antithesis to Spurlock’s Super Size Me.   And as you would expect, the filmmaker attacks Super Size Me. Some of this movie shows its libertarian bent with government regulation and free choice.  And while I certainly don’t identify as a libertarian, I sympathize with aspects of it.  But I still think restaurants should be required to indicate calorie amounts on their menu boards.

One of the main themes of this movie is that the low-fat diet we’ve been lead to is not as supported as we’ve been reared.  We’re taken to this theme through talking-head scientists and by the producer that goes through his own month-long fast food diet (mostly McDonalds).  Only with this producer, he loses weight.

At the same time, regardless of the truth or falsity regarding diet, I still think McDonalds is an asshole after watching McLibel.  And I still find Fathead to be largely compatible with Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation.  Issues like wages, meat packing, environment, and food safety are still relevant.  Though the Fat Head producer seriously plays down advertising to children—a matter which Schlosser takes seriously.

This documentary does provide some informative mythbusting regarding diet and health.  For example, there likely isn’t an obesity epidemic to be blamed on fast food.  The incidence of obesity may not have really increased, but the number of “obese” people might have swelled when the inaccurate BMI was instituted as a health indicator.  There hasn’t been conclusive evidence linking cholesterol, fat, and heart disease (though not mentioned in the film, the incidence of heart disease has declined in the last 50 years, just as fast food has increased in popularity).  The low-fat diet myth was busted about ten years ago, with a response in the form of high-fat, low-carb diets.  Furthermore, while alluded to but never fully addressed in the film, the health care industry has been careless addressing the well being of obese people, often dismissing any unrelated ailments with a prescription to lose some weight.

However, while Naughton criticizes nutrition scientists for ignoring pertinent health information regarding fat and cholesterol, he makes some pretty large omissions himself.  True, nobody is forced to eat at McDonald’s, and they aren’t forced to get the largest meal.  Most people know that McDonald’s isn’t healthy, they can easily access the nutritional info, etc.  While people should have a free choice about what they eat, how can it possibly be mistaken as a fair choice?  He never once mentions that the fast food industry is heavily subsidized, while healthier alternatives are not.  He states that people are rational beings capable of making logical choices and that the poor are unfairly assumed to be stupid and lazy.  Yet he forgets that the portion of income used to buy food is a large factor weighed when the poor make logical decisions.  He argues that the big, bad government and big, bad health food lobbies would like to artificially double the cost of fast food through “taxation and regulation” in order to sway those choices.  What if the big, bad government just eliminated the subsidies that currently support the fast food industry?  The cost of a hamburger would be far more than double, and it would cost considerably more than produce and legumes.  Oh, and we shouldn’t forget that the big, bad government can’t build adequate playgrounds, while the unfairly demonized private fast food industry is able to provide much more for kids—no doubt due to their “free market” success.

Naughton also makes a dangerous assumption regarding diet and evolution as he promotes a fast food version of Atkins.  Unfortunately, our bodies evolved based on past conditions, not current ones.  True, our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate fewer carbs, but they did eat grains and fruits.  Unlike the McDonald’s diet, their diet was rich in fiber and essential micronutrients and low in sodium.  True, they ate plenty of meat and thus animal fat.  Yet the animals they ate and the lifestyles they had were much different than our current ones (though he does repeatedly stress the importance of exercise).  Grass-eating wild animals were considerably leaner and lower in saturated fat than their modern day grain-fed factory counterparts.  Hunter-gatherers did not consume dairy.

Yet we can’t go back to eating a basic hunter-gatherer diet, as slow foodies like Michael Pollan will advocate.  There simply aren’t enough resources available for everyone to eat pasture-grazing livestock.  It was the advent of agriculture and grain production that led to the human population explosion.  And unfortunately, our bodies can’t adapt to current conditions.  Most diet related diseases will kill people mid-life or later, after they’ve reproduced.  So the outdated genes get passed on.  

I agree that the USDA food pyramid is biased by an interest to promote commodity crops.  But the answer isn’t to pack in foods high in saturated fats.  Fats can be enjoyed in moderation, just as we’ve long been told.  And also as we’ve been told, a balanced diet includes vegetables, fruits, lean proteins, complex carbohydrates, and yeah, exercise.  Nothing new there.  There’s no easy fad that will allow us to consume large amounts of the junk foods we crave.  Sadly, since our genes developed under conditions that no longer exist, we now have to eat and do things we may not always enjoy in order to stay healthy.

Finally, I’m not sure how Fat Head is at all compatible with Fast Food Nation.  Yes, issues like wages, meat packing, the environment, and food safety are still very relevant.  Along with subsidies and factory farming, none of these things are ever mentioned.  And these things should be considered far more relevant than an individual taste preference for Big Macs.