‘Eating lots of fat makes my body insulin defective.’ ibid.
Professor Susan Jebb’s long-term study ... ‘You can cut calories ... it's about the overall balance of diet.’ ibid.
The world is getting fatter – processed food. ibid.
Fat and sugar together ... the real problem. ibid.
Britain is in the grip of an obesity epidemic. We can’t seem to stop eating and we are getting fatter. Dr Giles Yeo, Horizon: Who Are We Getting So Fat? BBC 2016
Obesity is conceived as quite a simple problem … ‘Our urge to eat … is a product of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.’ ibid.
These high sugar levels flow across the placenta. ibid.
Everyone wants to be thin … and yet 60% of us are overweight. In the middle of an obesity crisis, the multi-billion-pound weight-loss business is bigger than ever … The men who have made their fortunes by selling us the dream of being thin through diet, and left us fatter than ever. Jacques Peretti, The Men Who Made Us Thin I, BBC 2013
27 million of us in the UK have tried to diet in the last year. ibid.
The more diets we undertake, the fatter we’re getting. ibid.
Minnesota 1944: [Ancel] Keys showed that trying to lose weight long-term by dieting wouldn’t work. ibid.
The US government adopted the MetLife standard, and mass neurosis spread through the nation. ibid.
Our biology can prevent us keeping the weight off. ibid.
I wanted to find out how Slimfast became so successful. ibid.
Their shame is the industry’s guarantee of profits. ibid.
Atkins was the first international diet guru. ibid.
They started selling Weight Watchers’ franchises. ibid.
I’ve come to this extreme slimming class to find out just how much effort is required to lose weight through exercise. Jacques Peretti, The Men Who Made Us Thin II
The meteoric growth of the fitness industry worth nearly £4 billion a year. ibid.
The calorie-burning effects are limited by your metabolism. ibid.
How did we get sold the idea that exercise would make us thin? ibid.
Jane Fonda’s Workout: it revolutionized fitness. ibid.
A number of the headline Olympic sponsors were food giants. ibid.
Obesity has become increasingly medicalised. ibid.
The dream of a pill that makes us thin has been with us for years. ibid.
Fenfluramines were sold in America … Potentially a nightmare. ibid.
GlaxoSmithKline Health Care Fraud GSK: ‘The US government is calling it the biggest case of health care fraud in American history.’ ibid. tv news
In 2008 Rimonabant was withdrawn from sale. ibid.
Surgery has always been for the obese, but a new ground-breaking operation is now available for overweight people who want to be thin. Jacques Peretti, The Men Who Made Us Thin III
The move had astonishing implications effectively making 29 million Americans fat overnight. ibid.
A magic ingredient that food industries seized upon – the Artificial Sweetener. ibid.
The brains of people who use sweeteners show a weaker response to sugar. ibid.
There’s still no definitive answer about the risks of being mildly overweight. ibid.
And as the need to get thinner gets ever more urgent I’ll be asking who we can really trust to help us. Jacques Peretti, The Men Who Made Us Thin IV
The diet plate, diet soaps, diet lollypops … a magnetic fat-reducing ring … ibid.
K E Diet: You get liquid food through your nose, much of it protein. ibid.
Brazilians are falling in love with fast food and sugary drinks. ibid.
Nestlé have got a boat which delivers packaged food to people living alongside the Amazon. ibid.
More people in the world are overweight than undernourished. Obesity levels are rising. Jacques Peretti, The Men Who Made Us Fat I, BBC 2012
How business changed the shape of a nation. How the food industry itself choreographs temptation. ibid.
Two-thirds of British adults are overweight. ibid.
The food industry has changed the very nature of what we eat in the last forty years. ibid.
A Japanese scientist had invented a process that turns corn into a cheap sweetener. By the 1980s high fructose corn syrup would become the number one substitute for sugar. ibid.
Earl Butz transformed the American diet and ultimately its waistline. ibid.
Corn syrup: its greatest impact was when it was put into soft drinks. ibid.
In 1994 the figures showed a frightening increase in people’s weight at the very time that Corn syrup in America’s food and drinks had spiralled out of control. ibid.
Scientists are now beginning to think that there is something very specific about fructose which accelerates obesity. ibid.
Keys’ view of fat as the enemy [cf. Yudkin] became the orthodoxy. ibid.
The food industry denies that it exploits neuroscience. ibid.
The idea that certain foods can be addictive is highly controversial. ibid.
The food industry and the sugar lobby in particular brought its muscle to bear to bury the [McGovern] report. ibid.
Overnight a whole new type of food was invented: low fat. ibid.
SnackWell’s was a marketing triumph but a disaster for America’s waistline. ibid.
What they did in the ’70s was give us sweeter food and more of it. ibid.
Britain is in the grip of an obesity epidemic. Twenty-four million of us are now overweight, our appetites super-sized by big business. Jacques Peretti, The Men Who Made Us Fat II
The story of the men who trapped us into eating more. ibid.
Kid’s breakfast: weighs the same as a small child. ibid.
This over-consumption is killing us. More than 60% of men and women in Britain are overweight or obese. ibid.
So when did we all start over-eating? And who was it that decided we should eat bigger and bigger portions? The answer lies not in Britain but four thousand miles away across the Atlantic in America. Here in downtown Chicago is where the story of super-sizing began. ibid.
People loved the bigger popcorn buckets and taller drinks. Sales and profits soared. The super-size portion was born. ibid.
It was the arrival of McDonald’s in Britain that was to really transform the way Britons ate. ibid.
Across Britain the new counter-service restaurants offered faster food for a faster lifestyle. ibid.
McDonald’s didn’t want to bring in the value meal. ibid.
The value meal was rolled out globally. Within three years it accounted for almost half all meals sold. ibid.
More money on takeaways than on fresh fruit and vegetables. ibid.
Supermarkets: they are using super-sizing as a weapon in the price war. ibid.
They are offering calorie-rich foods at discount. ibid.
Back in the US, the land where super-sizing began, one in three people are obese, and still they keep eating. ibid.
There’s an obesity epidemic in Britain. And we think it’s all down to us eating too much fast food, processed ready meals and indulging deserts. But what if we are wrong? What if the food being sold to us as healthier is the very thing making us fat? Jacques Peretti, The Men Who Made Us Fat III
Welcome to the brave new world of shopping science. ibid.
Consumers get confused about what’s healthy and what is less fattening. ibid.
In 1992 John Major’s government was the first to grapple with obesity in this report: The Health of the Nation: A Strategy for Health in England presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Health. ibid.
In 1998 Procter & Gamble launched Sunny Delight. ibid.
By 1999 the organic business was worth over £600 million, more than doubling in two years. ibid.