I’ll write a longer review for this film on Monday (the proper day with other reviews for indies like “Only Lovers Left Alive” and blockbusters like “Godzillas”), but for now I’ll just implore you to go see the best food documentary since Food Inc. and the one even more likely than that film to change what you eat and where you eat.
“Fed Up” deals primarily with how little we truly know about nutrition, and how misleading food labels can be. It’s not just about the food conglomerates swallowing up more market share every year with a cancerous product, although the film does point out that they’ve really become the new Big Tobacco, an industry spreading p.r.-driven lies about exactly how dangerous its product is while marketing straight to children.
No, “Fed Up” is just as much about exactly how this food is affecting our bodies and why we can’t simply burn it off with just exercise. [Nothing is more effective in getting me to watch what I eat better than an obese little girl exercising for hours everyday but essentially experiencing no real weight loss because her diet hasn’t changed.] It’s as if Michael Pollan directed Supersize Me, and we’re all the better for watching it.
Go see it, and be glad you did. It should be a public service for parents (increasingly targeted by junk food advertising to give kids “what they want”) to watch it, and then maybe be scared straight from eating everything from fast food to horrifyingly unhealthy public school lunches…approved and provided by a congress that’s bought by big food companies. [Not all that different from those Big Tobacco lobbying dollars.]
Grade: A