Fed Up Page #2

Not a very big problem.

The subtle message is

"It's your fault you're fat."

All you need to do

is eat less, exercise more.

It's all about personal responsibility,

about willpower.

That's the message

that's been pushed on us.

I want to see you all moving,

all right?

Forget about it.

"Eat less, exercise more".

has been the common sense

answer to unwanted weight

for more than half a century.

This was the science.

And it started with a mouse.

The year was 1953.

Up until this point,

exercise had been considered taboo.

Doctors even warned it would cause heart

attacks and diminish your sex drive.

Then came Dr. Jean Mayer,

a French physiologist

who would become the foremost

expert on obesity in the U.S.

He noted that large lab mice

ate virtually the same amount

as smaller mice.

But the big ones weren't

nearly as active afterwards.

Mayer's conclusion,

lack of exercise must be related

to weight gain.

His finding sparked

a fitness revolution.

This is where you come

and punish yourself for fun...

or rather, for your health.

Here we go now.

We're gonna step apart together

To the right. Apart...

By the time Jane Fonda

became the face of fitness,

Americans were spending billions

of dollars trying to lose weight.

Let's get physical

Physical

I wanna get physical

But as more and more people

began exercising,

more and more waistlines

grew out of control.

Between 1980 and 2000,

fitness club memberships more than

doubled across the United States.

During that same time,

the obesity rate also doubled.

A decade later,

two out of every three Americans

were either overweight or obese.

So how is it possible...

that the enormous rise

of the fitness revolution.

almost exactly mirrored

the rise in obesity rates.

Something is making that happen.

The question is, how is that happening

in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia,

Sweden, Norway, South Africa

and everywhere else.

And we have obese

six-month-olds.

You want to tell me that

they're supposed to diet and exercise?

So, how our politicians

can continue

to espouse this same mantra...

"Diet and exercise,

you are what you eat, it's your fault"

is absolutely beyond me.

I am 12 years old,

and I weigh 212 pounds.

My doctors have said

that I am a statistic.

I don't really know what it means.

I think it has something

to do with my weight.

They normally say that

I'm just supposed to eat healthier

and exercise a lot more,

which is what I am doing.

I swim four days a week

and then walking my dogs

on the weekends.

We didn't really start to worry

about it until I think she was eight,

um, when the doctor wanted us

to seek a nutritionist

to kind of address the issue.

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