Australia's "A Movie About Sugar" turned many people's diets upside down as soon as it was released. Damon Gameau, who is both director and starring, took himself as the subject of the experiment. For 2 months, he ate 40 scoops of food with added sugar every day to observe the changes in his body.
Halfway through the experiment, Damon looked 10 years older. He became lethargic, moody, and had trouble concentrating. His body became heavier and more inflexible, and he, who originally liked to exercise, became less and less willing to move.
After the 2-month experiment, Damon gained 8.5kg in weight, 7% in body fat and 10cm in waist circumference.
1. Different Calories
What puzzled Damon and his team of experts is that during the experiment, although Damon maintained the same daily intake and exercise as before the experiment, he still gained weight and suffered from fatty liver, heart disease, diabetes, etc. risk of disease. Obesity comes in a ferocious and irrational way.
Why does the same number of calories still make Damon fat? Is there a difference between calories?
We know from the videos that the only difference is where they come from. During the experiment, Damon swapped calories from high-quality fat and protein for calories from added sugar.
But the film does not give a sound scientific theory to explain why the calories are different, which is also the film (experiment) inadequacy. It just uncovered the phenomenon, made us aware of the problem, but did not propose a solution.
But this also has to make us think: the concept of calories that has been ingrained in our cognition for decades may be wrong, and the theory that we pursue the theory of eating less than we consume to lose weight is not a simple matter of addition and subtraction.
Many people who lose weight struggle with the problem of adding and subtracting calorie intake, but they do not consider their own pleasure and satisfaction at all, and they do not understand that a witty body cannot be measured by addition and subtraction arithmetic.
Merchants have also firmly seized the calorie business opportunity and launched low-calorie foods, low-calorie cookies, low-calorie bread, sugar substitutes, and more. Through these addition and subtraction calculations, we arrange our daily intake clearly, but we also lose the original satisfaction brought by food, and become afraid of facing food.
Instead of focusing too much on the number of calories, choose the right foods and eat as much as you can.
2. High-sugar diets that cannot be resisted
In order to expand the scope of the experiment and obtain a more comprehensive conclusion, Damon went to the Aboriginal tribe, the Amata. Since outsiders brought sweets, cookies, and cakes to the tribe, the tribe's sugar intake has risen sharply, and the health of the tribe's residents has also begun to plummet.
To a large extent, the huge differences in the health levels of the tribesmen before and after can be attributed to the "invasion" of added sugars.
For the health of residents, they started a Mai Wiru project to reduce people's intake of added sugars and ensure residents have access to natural, clean food, and they also hired nutritionists to guide residents in healthy living.
The project worked quickly, residents reduced their sugar intake, and gradually learned to choose healthy food. However, at a critical moment, the government withdrew Mai Wiru's funding.
Residents turned away Coke from the shelves after the government's divestment, led by Mai Wiru, but couldn't avoid the growing number of other high-sugar foods on the shelves.
Supermarkets are full of high-sugar foods, and residents cannot choose natural and clean foods; without the guidance of nutritionists, residents do not know how to choose food.
They have no choice and do not know how to choose. They can only buy a lot of high-sugar food, but the price of high-sugar diet is health damage, and if health is damaged, they need to go to the hospital for treatment. This series of behaviors promoted the development of the local economy, brought benefits, and the pockets of the merchants were bulging.
Don't know if this is the main reason for the withdrawal, but it caused them to be unable to resist high-sugar diets.
Especially in recent years, food is no longer just an energy source for us. There are all kinds of high-sugar foods everywhere in the store, and merchants stimulate our desire to buy through color, aroma, packaging, and advertising, making it difficult for us to say "no" to them. High-sugar foods are addictive, but they are everywhere.
3. Authority and Data
Through the film, we learned that the harm caused by high-sugar diet to people has attracted attention from all walks of life, and people want to find out. In the 1970s, the food industry hired scientific teams to investigate and study the effects of sugar on people's health, concluding that sugar was not associated with chronic disease. The food industry also employs PR firms to do a lot of positive publicity to keep people safe from eating sugar.
And now it's the same. The food industry pays scientists to do research that is beneficial to them, to professional organizations such as heart or cancer research institutions to publish articles that are beneficial to them, and to describe scientific research that is not beneficial to them as junk research. So what's in front of us is this: sugar doesn't affect people's health.
Leaving aside for a moment the true impact of sugar on our health, we need to be vigilant that the truth is under control . If the facts we accept, the ideas rooted in our perceptions are carefully planned and presented, then aren't we living in a giant conspiracy? The authority and science we worship and practice can be faked, so who else can we trust?
Fortunately, there are still many voices of doubt, let us look at the problem rationally. Now more and more studies show that high-sugar diet is a chronic poison, which is addictive and harmful to health.
Authority does not equal truth, even science is falsifiable, not to mention the authority deduced artificially. Only by looking at problems with dialectical thinking can we ensure that our thinking is not limited and deceived.
4. Extreme diet
The beginning of the film tells that in the 1950s, all walks of life had a heated discussion on "fat is the culprit of obesity" or "sugar is the culprit of obesity". In the end, fat was identified as the culprit, and sugar was spared.
So far, low-fat diets have become a trend, and people equate low-fat diets with healthy diets. Businesses have firmly grasped the huge profits brought by the low-fat diet culture, and have launched low-fat healthy products.
However, low-fat foods are often not tasty. In order to improve the taste, only a large amount of added sugar can be added to ensure the taste of the food, and it can also give consumers a psychological hint of health and weight loss when they enjoy the taste, so as to increase sales and gain benefits.
But the fact is, the current world population obesity rate has reached an unprecedented height. Who is the culprit?
Neither, the real harm is the knock-on effect of extreme diets.
We used to think that fat is the culprit of obesity, and the craze to resist fat has swept the world. We think we can get healthy by avoiding the culprit of obesity, but what awaits us is a higher obesity rate.
But now that we know the dangers of sugar, we all start to resist it. This has led to an extreme, this time with more serious consequences.
People take it out of context and think that sugar is an unforgivable sin and should be strongly resisted, even the staple food. But quitting sugar means reducing or stopping your intake of added sugar, not an extreme diet.
In fact, the sugar-free diet did not reduce obesity rates, but caused more serious psychological problems.
The concept of quitting sugar has made many young people who pursue a good figure go on a crazy diet, cut off carbohydrates, and cut off fat, causing countless people to rebound from extreme diets and develop mental illnesses such as bulimia, anorexia, anxiety, and depression.
The consequences of extreme diets are unimaginable. There is no sin in food itself, and it is difficult for us to resist the temptation of delicious food. A reasonable approach is to treat each serving of food with a normal heart, obtain balanced nutrition, not extreme, and obtain it in moderation, and choose the eating habits that suit you by feeling the response of your body.
Scientific research is all about making us choose to live better, not making us extreme and distorted.
The overall style of the film is more relaxed and humorous, especially at the end of the film, a MV is used to express the ubiquitous and addictive phenomenon of sugar.
The experiment recorded in the film aims to expose the harm of sugar to the human body, but there are many unreasonable points in the experiment. It seems a bit one-sided to draw disclosure from high sugar. And the experiment also lacks a specific scientific theory, which makes people doubtful. But some of the phenomena reflected in the entire film are also worth pondering.
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