Got a Big Belly? (Why Big Sugar Is to Blame)

Growing up Republican, I have long believed in personal responsibility. In junior high school, when I observed close relatives who struggled with obesity, I vowed to never let myself get out of shape. (“Junior high” is what we called middle school back in the day.) When hip surgery gone wrong dramatically reduced my level of physical activity two and a half years ago, I cut back on what I ate to keep from gaining weight. In fact, I believe that much of our nation’s obesity epidemic comes down to personal responsibility—if people ate less and exercised more, we’d be a healthier nation.

But there is another culprit who deserves blame for American obesity—the sugar industry, which, for decades, bamboozled the American public about the dangers of its product .

My ire at big sugar was stoked by a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine analyzing correspondence from the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) in the 1960s and 70s. In the late 50s, the sugar industry recognized that people’s concerns about the connections between cholesterol and heart disease provided them with an opportunity to tout the “no fat” benefits of sugar. By 1962, however, the industry recognized that high sugar intake could increase cholesterol levels, too.
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PeterUbel