UM to Screen ‘Fed Up’ on Thursday, October 8

Fed Up DVD PosterThe Office of Sustainability is partnering with Students for a Green Campus, the Environmental Studies minor, the Student Dietetics Association, and Real Food Rebels to screen Fed Up, a documentary about the obesity epidemic in America. The free screening will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 8 at 6 p.m. in the Overby Center Auditorium.

Obesity is a serious health risk that threatens the lives of millions of Americans. According to the documentary, “over 95 percent of all Americans will be overweight or obese in two decades. By 2050, one out of every three Americans will have diabetes.” These are some of the major health concerns about processed food. Robert Lustig, professor of Pediatrics at the University of California San Francisco, explains “there are 600,000 food items in America. Eighty percent of them have added sugar.”

The Office of Sustainability is dedicating the month of October to celebrate real food and bring attention to local, regional, and national food issues. The Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard University explains how food is related to environmental sustainability:

“As individual consumers, and as employees in corporations, we make decisions every day about the food we buy, which gives us great power to reshape the way we produce, process, transport, and use food.”