Page 82 - Spring2009

Tim’s DVD Reviews

The Quality of Calories: Fat Head
What Makes Us Fat and Why Nobody Seems to Care Tom Naughton
By Gary Taubes Produced by Susan Smiley/
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=21216 Vine Street Pictures

Gary Taubes gave this presentation at UC Berkeley in November, Here we have a health video with a sense of
2007 in an attempt to challenge the paradigm accepted among experts on humor. Tom Naughton starts off by asking some
why we get fat. The current paradigm states that in order to lose weight, tough questions about the film “Super Size Me.”
we need to eat less and exercise more. Mr. Taubes has noticed that we’ve For instance, you have to do a whole lot of eating
been trying that for one hundred years and it isn’t working. to take in over 5000 calories a day, as Spurlock
Taubes examines other popular theories that attempt to explain obesity. claimed he did. Even super-sized McMeals three
The first is genetics. That one is quickly disposed of by looking at how times a day need a lot of supplemental desserts
fast obesity rates have shot up in recent history in the U.S. In less than a to add up to 5000 calories. As Tom is talking
generation, obesity rates skyrocketed. Nobody believes human genetics about all this you see many shots of very obese
can change that fast. people on the streets. He noted that it took him a
So, is excess weight due to excess prosperity? Do we get rich, then lot longer to find very obese people to film than
start eating too much rich, fatty food and play too many video games? he would have expected based on popular media
Many seem to think that is what happened in the U.S. Taubes spends some and government reports on obesity (and he makes
time surveying evidence to refute that theory from around the world. some interesting points about why that is). So he
“Fat Louisa” was a Pima Indian living in 1902 who was significantly decided to perform his own little experiment.
overweight. So were many of her people at that time. They lived on the Mr. Naughton weighed 206 pounds, his
government reservation and were destitute. Before confinement to the cholesterol was 231, and he had a little over 31
reservation they were a very affluent people and almost never overweight. percent body fat according to his doctor at the
After a fairly detailed tour of the world, looking at Sioux, Zulu, Apaches, start of his twenty-eight-day fast food diet. On
African-Americans, Bantu, Cherokee, Jamaicans, Europeans and many this diet, he concentrated on keeping the carbs
others, a pattern emerges. Being poor is much more commonly associated low and ate plenty of saturated fat. His experi-
with being obese than being rich and having unlimited access to rich food ence is interspersed with interviews of Dr. Al
full of saturated fat. So much for the prosperity-equals-obesity theory. Sears, and Drs. Michael and Mary Eades. We
After examining in detail the science of fat metabolism, Taubes also see the familiar faces of Sally Fallon and
suggests a theory that fits all the facts. Studies show that under certain Dr. Mary Enig several times through the video.
circumstances animals can eat unlimited quantities of food and not gain (There is also a bonus section with more detailed
weight. Under other circumstances, they can eat almost nothing and get fat. interviews loaded with excellent information.)
Something controls fat accumulation independent of how much is eaten or He goes into some detail on the work of Gary
how much exercise is done. That something is insulin. He notes that insulin Taubes, exposing the simplistic fallacy of how
production is triggered by carbohydrate intake, not fat. Counting calories calorie counting is done by mainstream nutrition-
in a reducing diet doesn’t work because all calories are not equal. ists. We learn about the duplicity of the Center for
Taubes has spoken with experts who have published the details show- Science in the Public Interest, which promoted
ing the connection between carbohydrates, insulin and weight gain. He trans fats for years, then turned around and sued
asked what makes us fat. He got answers like: we eat too much; we’re too fast food companies for using trans fat when the
sedentary. Old habits and paradigms are apparently hard to break. Gary prevailing politics on trans fat shifted.
Taubes presents very well and is very interesting. I give this presentation The funniest point in “Fat Head” comes
a thumbs up. when, after twenty-eight days on fast food,
80 Wise Traditions SPRING 2009