In 1967, the Sugar industry secretly funded a research.
This research fooled the government, demonized fat, and made sugar the silent killer.
How a $50K bribe started an obesity epidemic that now costs US $200 Billion a year:
A thread 🧵
These numbers are pretty shocking:
• 2 in 5 people in the US are obese
• Obesity costs $200 Billion to the US every year
• Approx 36% of people consume fast food every day
• The US spends more on healthcare than education!
It all started at the end of the World War II.
As the war ended, America's economy grew by 400% within just 20 years.
People could now afford Cars, TVs, and other discretionary items.
This led to a sedentary lifestyle and gave birth to the famous "TV dinner".
People became increasingly exposed to ads for overly processed food.
And the middle class started shifting towards consuming an abundance of packaged products.
The economy was booming and everyone was living a happy life.
But then something crazy happened.
8 US senators died of heart attack within a span of a few years.
Even President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack.
But that wasn't all.
Heart attacks were becoming increasingly common amongst middle-aged American men and nobody could figure out why.
The nation was in shock and the public was desperate for answers.
Ancel Keys, an American nutritionist blamed the amount of fat in the American diet.
He suggested that diets high in saturated fats and meat could raise LDL cholesterol.
This is how a typical restaurant menu looked back then 👇
But a British physiologist had a completely different take.
John Yudkin said that sugar was the cause of heart disease and obesity.
When the Sugar Association heard this, they started funding Keys' research.
The sugar industry paid almost $50K to three scientists.
In 1967, these scientists published a research paper on sugar, fat, and heart disease.
It aimed to minimize the link between sugar and heart health & put the blame on saturated fat.
Several other published studies also put the blame on fat.
One of the few basic and essential macronutrients that humans had been eating for centuries was turned into a culprit.
So Senator George McGovern called a hearing in 1977.
The idea was to come up with dietary goals for the nation.
And they certainly did.
The U.S. dietary goals recommended eating more carbs and reducing fat consumption. A horrible directive.
Americans heard it like this: Fat is bad. Carbs are good.
The food industry saw this as an opportunity and introduced things like:
- Fat-free yogurt
- Fat-free cookies
- Fat-free chips
The formula was: Take out the fat; add lots of sugar.
Food with "No-fat" labels started flying off the shelves.
Pretzels were good (no fat), nuts were bad (loaded with fat).
This was one of the dumbest moves in the history of America.
The "low-fat" craze hit America like a tidal wave.
Americans gobbled "fat-free" and "low-fat" options, thinking they were making healthy choices.
But these products were loaded with sugar to compensate for taste.
A single "low-fat" yogurt often contained more sugar than a candy bar.
The result? Americans were unknowingly consuming more calories than ever before.
By 1999, the average American ate 530 more calories per day than in 1970.
That's like adding a daily Big Mac to your diet.
And it showed. Obesity rates skyrocketed.
In 1980, about 15% of American adults were obese.
By 2000, that number had doubled to 30%.
The food industry was destroying the population's health.
Fast food chains introduced "super-size" options.
A large soda used to be 21 ounces. But by the 2000s, it had ballooned to 42 ounces.
That's double the amount of liquid sugar in a "single serving."
And it wasn't just soda. Everything got bigger.
The average pizza slice grew 70% in calories between 1982 and 2002.
A typical muffin went from 210 calories in the 1990s to 500 calories in the 2000s.
Even seemingly healthy options weren't safe.
By 2018, nearly 1 in 5 American children were obese.
The cost? Astronomical.
Medical costs related to obesity hit $200 Billion.
That's more than the US spends on education each year.
But how do we improve this dire situation?
Act in opposition to the recent past & get back to nature. Encourage consumption of:
• Healthy fats
• High quality proteins
• Low-glycemic, unprocessed carbs
And, of course, minimize sugar intake.
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