How the Government Made You Fat

PragerU: Five-Minute Videos

PragerU

Non-profit, Self-improvement, Education, Business, History

4.7 • 6.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 September 2019

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ever since the introduction of the Food Pyramid in the early '90s, the average American has gotten fatter and sicker. Has this government-approved nutritional guideline — the basis of the modern “healthy diet” — led us astray? If so, how did this happen, and what can we learn from it? Cardiologist Dr. Bret Scher offers some food for thought on this very weighty issue.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Here's a riddle.
0:01.9	How is it that ever since the government began telling us what to eat, we've gotten
0:06.1	fatter and sicker?
0:08.7	In 1977, when the government first set dietary guidelines, the average American male weighed
0:14.6	170 pounds.
0:16.9	He now weighs 197.
0:18.9	It's not any better for women, 145 to 170.
0:23.6	And you don't need an academic study to know the same thing is happening to kids.
0:28.9	Let's look around.
0:30.2	The weight gain has real life consequences.
0:33.0	The percentage of Americans diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a condition that can lead
0:37.2	to severe medical issues, has risen from 2% in 1977 to over 9% in 2015.
0:45.2	In hard numbers, that's 5 million people to over 30 million people.
0:50.3	How did this happen?
0:51.9	It all started innocently enough in the 1950s when President Dwight Eisenhower had a heart
0:56.7	attack while in office.
0:58.5	Suddenly, the issue of heart health became a national obsession.
1:02.4	Keep in mind, this was an era when scientists had harnessed the power of the atom, unlocked
1:07.5	the secrets of DNA, and cured once incurable diseases like polio.
1:12.8	Surely, there had to be a scientific solution to heart disease.
1:16.7	There was.
1:18.0	And a charismatic medical researcher from the University of Minnesota named Ansel Keys
	...

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