Diet and Exercise Movie Reviews

By Coach Doug Garcia

Let’s face it—many of us swim because we want to shed the pounds, or at least try to keep the pounds from getting out of control. There are thousands of opinions, research, books, articles, and movies about diet and food. I enjoy reading about food and how it relates to our health—both our physical and mental health.

I recently saw two movies that made a profound impact on my food and diet outlook. The first movie is Food Inc., available on Netflix. Food Inc. goes through the entire food system for our country, from farm to table. This movie has some footage from the meat and food processing industries that may be upsetting to some, but the footage was appropriate to explain how we obtain our food.  The film examines the topics of eating locally grown food, the culture of the food processing laborers, and the effects of chemicals used in processing our food.

The most recent movie I watched was Fed Up. This movie looked at four children, ages 8 to 16, all battling eating challenges and poor health. What came out in in all four cases was the child’s uncontrollable desire for sugar. What was even more surprising was the sugar was coming from food labeled as low fat or low calorie, and it was abundantly found in their school lunch. As the movie progresses, your heart breaks for these children and how they’ve been manipulated by the food industry.

Finally, the book The American Way of Eating by Tracie McMillian is an outstanding examination of the food industry. McMillian worked as an undercover reporter for three months each in the fields of California harvesting produce, the produce section of a Michigan Walmart, and the kitchen of a New York City Applebees. Each setting revealed how poorly our food-systems workers are paid and how little knowledge these workers have of the products with which they work.

As a non-expert on food and diet, I found each source to impact the way I look at the food I eat. In addition, they were easy for the lay person to understand and I encourage you take some time and check them out if you have any interest in this topic.

Good Cards Bad Carbs

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