A well-done documentary series
I've watched the four installments over the past week at the HBO site, and it's very well done; I'm in the process of watching them again with the kids. The Weight of the Nation presents the issue without any of the finger-pointing that is so common to discussions in the public sphere about obesity. It discusses root causes in society and mass marketing instead, presents lots of opinions by people of all ages who are fat, and a lot of studies about what is going on with our bodies, and what that is going to mean for us as a nation.
I think it is quite worthwhile to watch for anyone, doubly so if you or your loved ones are overweight.
The first episode is the best to watch if you have only an hour to spend, but if you have two hours, also watch the third episode which is called "Children in Crisis."
Here's the description of the series provided by HBO: I've added some carriage returns to break up wall o'text.
About the Project
Bringing together the nation’s leading research institutions, THE WEIGHT OF THE NATION is a presentation of HBO and the Institute of Medicine (IOM), in association with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and in partnership with the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Kaiser Permanente.
The centerpiece of THE WEIGHT OF THE NATION campaign is the four-part documentary series, each featuring case studies, interviews with our nation’s leading experts, and individuals and their families struggling with obesity.
The first film, CONSEQUENCES, examines the scope of the obesity epidemic and explores the serious health consequences of being overweight or obese.
The second, CHOICES, offers viewers the skinny on fat, revealing what science has shown about how to lose weight, maintain weight loss and prevent weight gain.
The third, CHILDREN IN CRISIS, documents the damage obesity is doing to our nation’s children. Through individual stories, this film describes how the strong forces at work in our society are causing children to consume too many calories and expend too little energy; tackling subjects from school lunches to the decline of physical education, the demise of school recess and the marketing of unhealthy food to children.
The fourth film, CHALLENGES, examines the major driving forces causing the obesity epidemic, including agriculture, economics, evolutionary biology, food marketing, racial and socioeconomic disparities, physical inactivity, American food culture, and the strong influence of the food and beverage industry.
Note that I was unable to get the films to play on Firefox, but they worked fine in Safari.
By now we all know that not getting fat in the first place is the best option, but one of the fascinating things I learned was that if you have two otherwise identical people, if one of them was fat and lost the weight, s/he is going to have to eat 20% fewer calories than the never-fat identical person in order to stay at the same weight. I wasn't that surprised, actually; physiology doesn't play fair, and I'm glad teaching the kids good food habits has been part of my mission as mom since I got this job.
Another interesting aspect was one of their additional pieces on discrimination - some real eye-openers there. All in all, chock-full of solid reporting.
This entry was originally posted at http://cvirtue.dreamwidth.org/107303.html. There are
comments at DW. You can comment here at LJ, too.
I think it is quite worthwhile to watch for anyone, doubly so if you or your loved ones are overweight.
The first episode is the best to watch if you have only an hour to spend, but if you have two hours, also watch the third episode which is called "Children in Crisis."
Here's the description of the series provided by HBO: I've added some carriage returns to break up wall o'text.
About the Project
Bringing together the nation’s leading research institutions, THE WEIGHT OF THE NATION is a presentation of HBO and the Institute of Medicine (IOM), in association with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and in partnership with the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Kaiser Permanente.
The centerpiece of THE WEIGHT OF THE NATION campaign is the four-part documentary series, each featuring case studies, interviews with our nation’s leading experts, and individuals and their families struggling with obesity.
The first film, CONSEQUENCES, examines the scope of the obesity epidemic and explores the serious health consequences of being overweight or obese.
The second, CHOICES, offers viewers the skinny on fat, revealing what science has shown about how to lose weight, maintain weight loss and prevent weight gain.
The third, CHILDREN IN CRISIS, documents the damage obesity is doing to our nation’s children. Through individual stories, this film describes how the strong forces at work in our society are causing children to consume too many calories and expend too little energy; tackling subjects from school lunches to the decline of physical education, the demise of school recess and the marketing of unhealthy food to children.
The fourth film, CHALLENGES, examines the major driving forces causing the obesity epidemic, including agriculture, economics, evolutionary biology, food marketing, racial and socioeconomic disparities, physical inactivity, American food culture, and the strong influence of the food and beverage industry.
Note that I was unable to get the films to play on Firefox, but they worked fine in Safari.
By now we all know that not getting fat in the first place is the best option, but one of the fascinating things I learned was that if you have two otherwise identical people, if one of them was fat and lost the weight, s/he is going to have to eat 20% fewer calories than the never-fat identical person in order to stay at the same weight. I wasn't that surprised, actually; physiology doesn't play fair, and I'm glad teaching the kids good food habits has been part of my mission as mom since I got this job.
Another interesting aspect was one of their additional pieces on discrimination - some real eye-openers there. All in all, chock-full of solid reporting.
This entry was originally posted at http://cvirtue.dreamwidth.org/107303.html. There are
comments at DW. You can comment here at LJ, too.