the men who made us fat- BBC documentary

[Sherbang]

You can buy a soda anywhere. Boycott everyone. Sorry, it's obviously just businesses that supply products cheaply you have a problem with.

Funny how cheap, high carb, high fructose meals and foods have been available for the better part of a century yet, obesity and diabetes have only become massive problems in the last decade or so. Must be evil big business and their insidious marketing. It couldn't be the increasingly sedentary and stressful lifestyles people are leading. It's funny how people will look for villains when the alternative is to accept responsibility themselves. It doesn't hurt when you can vilify anyone associated with the industry I suppose.

I don't have a problem with people buying soda and I never called for a boycott. I do have a problem with the government giving them the "key to the city" and promoting them.

 

[Arthur]

I don't have a problem with people buying soda and I never called for a boycott. I do have a problem with the government giving them the "key to the city" and promoting them.

And how does government do that exactly?

 

[Ancalagon]

And how does government do that exactly?

Heck the US government imposes import duties on sugar to protect the local maize industry. Yet we know that sugar is (marginally) healthier to use in soft drinks than HFCS. The reason why soft drinks use HFCS in the US is because of this import duty.

 

[Arthur]

OK. I know they use corn syrup. And according to that pedia-thingie cane/beet sugar prices in USA are triple those elsewhere because of US tariffs.

So, if your hypothesis holds, obesity and other dietary distortions in the US populace are a consequence of USGOV-imposed distortions of the market (ie super-tariffs treble normal market prices). In the final analysis, US obesity is caused by the government.

Does the same apply in the UK, say?

 

[Sherbang]

And how does government do that exactly?

http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/why-burger-king-got-key-to-city-1.1530527#.U05hlHNBvqA

 

[StrontiumDog]

<snip>
really does sound as if fast food companies research what ingredients were most addictive and consciously increase the contents of those ingredients instead of just selling foods that happen to popular because they happen to contain those foods.
<snip>

Yes, that's exactly what the food industry did. It's in the documentary...

edit: What fructose does: http://youtu.be/E6nGlLUBkOQ?t=23m35s

And in making things low fat they replace the fat with sugar: http://youtu.be/E6nGlLUBkOQ?t=48m7s

I watched this documentary months ago, so just going on what stuck in my mind from back then.

 

[noxibox]

The Men Who Made Us Fat - review

And in making things low fat they replace the fat with sugar

Blame the people who went on an anti-fat crusade. It hardly qualifies as some evil plan as implied by the title of the documentary.

Yet we know that sugar is (marginally) healthier to use in soft drinks than HFCS.

They're essentially the same thing.

When it comes to credit on the other hand you can't into credit trouble without someone extending the credit in the first place.

Except in cases of lending to desperate people the blame still falls on the borrower. Then even in the case of the desperate many of those would just go to black market sources if they couldn't get a loan from a bank or similar.

Both of these comments reflect a huge oversimplification of the situation.

The human body is a very complex thing and you are defining this very complex thing in terms so simplistic that all meaning is lost.

That's why simplistic ideas like only looking at what fructose does, then claiming this makes it unhealthy or causes people to eat more is wrong. It's why the drive to reduce salt intake is wrong, why the push to get people to eat less fat was wrong and so on. Some people do have specific sensitivities and they'd have to adjust their diet accordingly, but it's not a global solution to the real problems which are overconsumption combined with sedentary living.