You aren’t following me.

I know that Spurlock won’t show his food logs. So what? We know just from watching his movie that Spurlock was eating the french fries, the soft drinks, the buns, all the stuff that Naughton avoided. We know that he did not exercise. Therefore, he got fat. None of that conflicts with what Dr. Eades, Gary Taubes, or anyone else would expect. Low carb people know those food will make you fat, exactly what happened to Spurlock.

The only thing the two “experiments” have in common is that both happened at fast food restaurants, but both film-makers took completely different approaches to the food and their lifestyle, and so it is not surprising that they each had very different results.

Most people who eat at fast food restaurants are ordering the burger combo meals with the bun, the fries, and the soda, they are not eating like McNaughton did.

As for the nanny state, I haven’t seen any of the fast food restaurants hurting for business, and my local supermarket is filled with foods that are high in saturated fat. The food pyramid has been changing, and there are probably more people eating low carb diets these days than ever before.

I agree that the government has practiced some very bad food policies, most notably the promotion of cheap refined carbs and corn-based sweeteners and starches. Of course I agree that saturated fats are not the evil part of our diet. However, I think policy change will come from broader public awareness, and when a movie like Naughton’s is so poorly made, and runs so far off the rails of the subject matter, I am disappointed.

I am truly sorry about your health issues. I’m in my mid 50′s and I figured out how to eat right a couple of years ago. I dropped a lot of weight and got my lipid panel numbers into perfect condition. I feel better now than I have in years. I think there is an excellent chance that if you follow the sort of dietary advice you will find from people like Taubes and Eades, there is an excellent chance that you’ll experience a big turnaround.

I just wish Naughton had made a better film, to help as many other people as possible learn these dietary principles. If you want to see a good food documentary that really explores government policy gone wrong, rent “King Corn.”

Sincere best wishes,

Carl

Except Spurlock refuses to show his food logs (which would prove he lied from the get-go!), and his piece-o’-crap movie is being forced on school children in their health classes, and he lacks any scientific validity — or even good research! Naughton’s movie is based on well-researched science, and he freely posted his food logs, and he is swimming upstream trying to get his movie shown in the U.S.

Do you REALLY not see the difference between:

“Naughton pushes internally contradictory themes, arguing on the one hand against a nanny state …, while saying on the other hand that consumers have been duped for decades with false information from the medical and scientific establishments, “big government,” and sinister radical vegetarians.”

A nanny state forces you to do it their way (the U.S Food pyramid is the basis for school lunches, military and prison food, you do know that, right?!) The 24/7 “duping” includes every single piece of media (esp. govt media!) — and as some cities try to ban sat fat, and others just recommend banning it — would you call that nanny state or duping? And in what way does it seem contradictory?

I argued that Fat Head is bad film, not that he have a “right” to make his bad film.

The Naughton experiment fails to disprove the Sprulock experiment. Spurlock ate a high calorie, high carb, high sugar set of fast foods and did not exercise. Naughton had strict controls over calories, carbs, and sugars, and did exercise. The both had valid and unsurprising results which do not contradict each other in any way.

This film is supposed to provoke thought.
I don’t agree with everything Naughton says, but he has a right to give us his point of view, whatever it is.
And I don’t agree with you at all about the Spurlock part, He misrepresented what his “experiment” was and Naughton called him on it.
Many people take Spurlock’s word that he proved what he said he did.

Have you known anyone who lost that much weight following all this? I want to beleive and try it, but I’ll admit, it so flies-in-the-face of everything I’ve been taught. I’m seriously thinking of traveling down this path you describe, and maybe even blogging about it.

The sections illustrating the underlying theory of low carb and criticizing the conventional wisdom would be a good introduction to the debate for those who were previously unaware. Dr. Eades is very articulate and makes a great contribution.

But the attack on Spurlock is time-consuming, petty, and ultimately unimportant and will strike the casual viewer as a validation of fast food as healthy nutrition. The film also contains a lot of right wing ideology, and makes weird claims like a link between school busing to achieve racial integration and overweight kids, and the thesis that the poor tend to be more overweight than the affluent because non-whites are genetically pre-disposed to have “thicker” bodies.

Naughton’s humor is tedious and juvenile, asking people on the street if they have ever collapsed with a heart attack after eating fettuccine alfredo, etc. In one scene, the film-maker’s wife seems to speak for the viewer when she asks him if he is a moron.

Naughton pushes internally contradictory themes, arguing on the one hand against a nanny state and saying that anyone “with a functioning brain” is already capable of making proper dietary decisions, while saying on the other hand that consumers have been duped for decades with false information from the medical and scientific establishments, “big government,” and sinister radical vegetarians.

It would be great if one day a documentary would surface that undertakes an objective scientific review of the evidence relied upon on by each side of the debate. Until then, there’s “Fat Head,” a highly problematic movie that is likely to alienate as many people away from questioning the conventional wisdom as it causes to become more open-minded on the topic.