An exchange I had on social media leads me again to discuss Health at Every Size, the very strong, very spirited movement that maintains that obesity isn’t the issue society should be concerned about.

Here's the last quote from "Fed Up" I have to offer, but of course I didn't capture them all. See the film when you get the chance, and pick out the quotes that strike home for you. Here's one of several gems from Bill Clinton, who was asked why the government isn't doing more:

"I can't answer that. America is insufficiently alert to the damage we're doing due to excess sugar intake."

Clinton, who has notably gone vegetarian since leaving the White House, looks substantially more healthful in this movie than many might remember him.

The hits just keep on coming from "Fed Up," the documentary whose Boston premiere I caught a week-plus ago. Here's a quote from Michael Pollan:

"School lunches have evolved to serve the food processors more than the students."

The "Fed Up" documentary I saw now more than a week ago continues to provide content (IMO) worth sharing; I've still got a couple of quotes left after this one. The Laurie David/Katie Couric documentary on the obesity epidemic is still not out in wide release, but when it is, I recommend it. Today's killer quote is from Dr. Harvey Karp, author of "The Happiest Baby on the Block":

"If a foreign nation were doing this to our kids, we’d probably go to war. So why do we let our own country do it?"

I kept notes, or tried to, during the Boston premiere of "Fed Up," the Laurie David/Katie Couric documentary on the obesity epidemic, and it has killer quote after killer quote. Here's one from Gary Taubes:

"We’re blaming the moral fortitude of these kids, and its a crime."

 

I kept notes, or tried to, during the Boston premiere of "Fed Up," the Laurie David/Katie Couric documentary on the obesity epidemic, and it has quotable line after quotable line. Here's one from Couric's intro...

"What if the solutions weren’t really solutions at all. What if they were making things worse? What if our whole approach to this whole epidemic has been dead wrong?"

I kept notes, or tried to, during the Boston premiere of "Fed Up," the Laurie David/Katie Couric documentary on the obesity epidemic, and it has killer quote after killer quote. Here's one by Maggie Valentine (left), one of the teen stars of the film, who is being active almost every time she's on screen, but still is struggling with, and being beaten down by, obesity.

An interesting contrast that arises from “Fed Up,” the new documentary pitched as the “Inconvenient Truth” for food that had its Boston premiere on Wednesday at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota) and Tom Harkin (Iowa) are Senate Democrats from neighboring Farm Belt states. Harkin is accorded sainthood status after decades-long efforts against childhood obesity. Of industry mouthpieces who come before him in committee and swear that, for example, that sugary beverages have no ill effect on children who drink them: “Sometimes I just want to ask: Do you have any shame at all? … How could these people sleep at night, knowing they were lying through their teeth? … How do they live with themselves?”

He also observes, “The Federal Trade Commission has less authority to regulate ads for kids than adults. You’d think it would be the other way around.”

But Klobuchar, who is included in the film’s closing graphics as one of a long list of voices who refused to be interviewed for the film, comes in for — as it seemed to me — a level of opprobrium slightly higher than she deserved, expressly because she was such a disappointment. As in, we expect Big Food to be this way, but you were supposed to be with us, with your female, progressive-leaning self.

I kept notes, or tried to, during the Boston premiere of "Fed Up," the Laurie David/Katie Couric documentary on the obesity epidemic, and it has killer quote after killer quote. Here's one by Margo Wootan (left) of the Center for Science in the Public Interest:

"It's like swimming upstream if you want to be healthy against the food environment."

I don't know how long I'll keep it up, but I kept notes, or tried to, during the Boston premiere of "Fed Up," the Laurie David/Katie Couric documentary on the obesity epidemic, and it has killer quote after killer quote. Here's one by Rob Lustig (left), endocrinologist, University of California, San Francisco: