Fed Up (***1/4)

One might track the American obesity epidemic by looking at the rise of the food documentary, which has nearly become its own subgenre in the decade since Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me. This film shares its title (minus an exclamation point) with a 2002 production that focused on the industrialization of food production in the second half of the 20th century. While director Stephanie Soechtig (whose earlier film Tapped went after the bottled-water industry) covers that turf briefly, the particular enemy here is Big Sugar, which really encompasses the entire processed food industry, since added sugar is in almost all of the packaged foods found in the modern supermarket, not to mention the candies and snacks found in the checkout aisle of stores of all types.

Countering arguments about individual responsibility and fears of an overregulating “nanny state,” Soechtig emphasizes childhood obesity, selecting a cross-section of what seem to be working-class American teens as her case studies. They help to explain how simply exercising personal choice as a way to slim is so difficult when even school purvey junk food and, as is clear from the clips, they are often led astray by misleading health claims on food labels that tout, say, lowered fat and don’t mention all the added sugar.

Katie Couric provides the narration. Soechtig also gets some of what might be called the usual suspects in the anti-corporate food war to make her case, including Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman, former FDA head David Kessler, and pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig. Lustig has the role of explaining why it is not true that, as I used to believe, “a calorie is a calorie.” I’ve heard the explanation, but he does it well. Finally, former President Bill Clinton and Iowa Senator Tom Harkin speak to the power of the food industry to thwart even modest-seeming measures like keeping fast food out of schools and issuing dietary guidelines that set a recommended level for sugar.


That both of these politicians are Democrats speaks to the difficulty of the issue. As with global warming, for the obesity crisis, no plausible private-sector solution presents itself. Thus denial becomes an attractive option for those suspicious of Big Government solutions. But perhaps, with the issue increasingly apparent for all to see, added sugar really will come to be seen, like cigarettes, as the “poison” that Lustig calls it.

Like some of the other food movies, this one ends with an exhortatory message, in this case urging the viewer to cut out sugar for ten days. It’s a slightly odd one, given that the film specifically repudiates the idea that reform can come through individual action. I also suspect that the people seeing this movie will be those already quite conscious of their own diet. However, should some ordinary filmgoers happen to see this, they’ll find a pleasant, well-paced film with some fun graphics (less intrusive than Spurlock’s) and an informative rather than hectoring tone.

 

IMDb link

viewed 6/12/14 7:50 pm at Ritz 5 and posted 6/12/14