FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

On April 11 PBS Looks at Why We Are Fat And What We Can Do About It


FAT: What No One Is Telling You

The Hard Truth About Why Diets Often Fail
Narrated by Meredith Vieira at 9:00 PM ET

Take One Step for Your Family’s Health

How We Can Shed the Guilt and Drop Some Pounds
Hosted by Dr. Nancy Snyderman at 10:30 PM ET

Fat is a thing you can’t hide.  Everyone who has ever struggled with a weight problem knows this.  There is tremendous frustration with diets that don’t work and a painful stigma to being fat in a society that worships “thin.”  Is it genes?  Is it metabolism?  Is it stress, evolution, or the lack of willpower?  Why can’t the brain control hunger?  What drives us to keep eating when we know we’re full?  As the number of seriously overweight Americans climbs to frightening levels, the quest for answers is becoming even more urgent. Obesity experts have a growing — and sobering — awareness of the complex human puzzle that is driving this epidemic and creating so much personal anguish.

FAT: What  No One Is Telling You, premiering April 11, 2007 at 9:00 p.m. (ET) on PBS gives viewers a window into the intense human dramas that rage inside people who are overweight and explains why their weight problems are so hard to solve. Even the most disciplined effort is beyond the abilities of many people — not because of weakness, but because of the complex mix of environmental factors and biology that make it a lot easier to gain weight than to lose it.  “Blaming the victim has kept us from seeking fundamental solutions to this epidemic,” says broadcast journalist Meredith Vieira, who narrates the documentary.

NOTE: A Spanish translation of FATwill be broadcast on the SAP track
to reach Latino audiences who are disproportionately affected
by obesity and its health consequences. 

“Being fat is not a moral crime and not just a matter of personal responsibility,” explains executive producer Naomi Boak.  At 5-foot-3 and 200 pounds, Boak has waged a personal war on fat since childhood.  “I couldn’t have made this film without the intimate experience of growing up fat,” she says. 

Boak’s 2004 primetime Emmy Award-winning documentary The Forgetting: A Portrait of Alzheimer’s was the first up-close look on television at the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease and provided the model for this season’s PBS Health Campaign.  Like that landmark special, the last thirty minutes of this two-hour evening event on PBS is devoted to practical advice.  Immediately following FAT at 10:30 p.m. (ET), Take One Step for Your Family’s Health is hosted by Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC News chief medical editor, who brings together pioneering medical researchers as well as community activists and public health leaders to explore what needs to be done on the personal level, the family level, the community level, and the public policy level to help kids avoid the lifelong health trap that is obesity.

FAT: What No One Is Telling You

The Intriguing Role of the “Second Brain”
As a young man, Michael Gershon, professor of medicine at Columbia University, went against the wishes of his father and the advice of his professors who urged him to study the brain.  Instead, he set off on an exploration of the bowel.  Intrigued by some long-forgotten 20th century scientific discoveries about an independent nervous system in the gut, Dr. Gershon’s research uncovered how this sophisticated physiological wiring functions essentially as a “second brain.”  The gut, it turns out, has a mind of its own and plays a major role in deciding when and how much we eat.  When the brain in the head says eat less and in moderation, the “second brain” in the gut can override the brain in the head and propel us to eat more and without restraint.

Obesity expert Dr. Lee Kaplan and his team at Massachusetts General Hospital compare the body’s hunger drive to the human body’s response to running up six flights of stairs.  You can force yourself to breathe slowly for a few seconds, despite this exertion, but ultimately your body will demand more oxygen and you’ll breathe faster.  When it comes to decisions about how much to eat, a similar battle occurs between your conscious will and your subconscious.  And if your subconscious brain wants more food, it wins and you eat more.

A study of gastric bypass surgery has led Dr. Kaplan to a compelling discovery about how the body regulates food consumption, and the hope that someday surgery can be avoided altogether.  Dr. Kaplan has found that weight loss in surgery patients is not just a result of making the stomach smaller.  The surgery actually reduces the feeling of hunger by cutting some of the nerves in the bowel, which changes the signals that flow between the gut and the brain. It also alters the way the hormonal system gets its information from food and sends it to the brain.  “By manipulating the gut, even in a small way, we end up changing the communication to the brain and the brain acts differently to manage our weight and metabolism,” says Dr. Kaplan.  His goal now is to completely replace surgery by developing medication that alters these intricate circuits in the same way that an invasive operation currently does.

Intense Human Struggles
A familiar face on television, actress Mary Dimino’s battles with food and dieting are the hysterical heart of her stand-up comedy.  As the documentary opens, we see Mary sweating through one of her daily three-hour gym sessions on the treadmill. Acknowledging that it’s a lot of exercise, she explains, “I have to work just as hard, even harder, just to maintain this level of chubbiness.”  Like many people who struggle with weight control, Mary has persistent fat cells in her body that were added during years of overeating.  Now the weight may come off, but the cells remain — always hungry — constantly crying out for more calories and defying Mary’s willpower.

“There was something haywire,” says Rosie Delhi, whose words confirm the suspicion every fat person has from trying and trying to lose weight.  A retired school principal, her bariatric surgery was, until now, a secret from everyone but closest family members.  “You can’t believe how awful it is,” says Rosie, who yearned to play on the floor with her grandchildren and be able to get up again.  “If I didn’t make a change, I was headed for a death sentence.”  The rewiring effect of the bariatric surgery, which Dr. Kaplan has identified, seems to be helping Rosie to sustain her weight loss by helping to suppress her hunger impulse.  Now her disciplined effort to maintain a healthy weight has a shot at success.

As a senior in high school, Rocky Tayeh utilized his budding talent as a journalist by producing a radio documentary on his battle with obesity.  Raised in Brooklyn, Rocky laments the everyday temptation of food available in his neighborhood.  “If I’m hungry at 4:00 in the morning, I just have to walk a block down,” says Rocky.  “There’s a Dunkin Donuts here, a McDonald’s here, a fast food restaurant here, a Chinese restaurant and they deliver.”  Despite the disapproval of his family and his own doubts about “taking the easy way out,” Rocky makes a decision to have surgery, loses 150 pounds and faces the prospect of a new life in college without the embarrassment, shame and stigma.

Carla Hurd has gained about 120 pounds over the last twelve years in her job as a marketing executive at Microsoft.  Carla and her overweight husband David signed up for a comprehensive weight management program funded by Microsoft.  Even with the no-holds barred support of all the best personal trainers, doctors, dieticians and psychologists and a profound motivation to get pregnant, her success in the battle to lose weight is elusive.  In videotaped diaries, Carla tracks her uncontrollable urges and her struggle to resist the comforting temptations of food that calms her stressful life. 

Public health nurse Pat Lyons, who describes herself as a professional fat woman, knows there is very little justice or sympathy for fat people.  Pat’s mission is to uncouple the idea that physical fitness and activity is only useful in regard to losing weight.  She believes everyone should be active, regardless of size, aiming to be as healthy as possible whatever weight you are.  “There are happy, healthy people of all shapes and sizes,” she points out.

The Drive to Prevent Obesity in Children
Eating habits are established and crystallized very early.  Cornell food psychologist Brian Wansink, who is studying the link between what kids eat and their parent’s behavior at home, has determined that we make an average of 119 decisions a day about food and eating, usually subconsciously and cued by things other than hunger.  By tracking kids as they make the choice between cake and carrots and super-sized portions versus what fills them up, Dr. Wansink is proving that parents can stem the tide of obesity by paying attention from the start.

A driving force behind Latino Health Access in Santa Ana, California, America Bracho sees the health crisis unfolding on the streets of her neighborhood and fears that overweight children are on their way to a lifetime of disease.  “These kids who are 11 are 250 pounds; they are probably going to be blind by 25, amputated at 28.  How urgent is that for a nation? How urgent is that for the family? How urgent is that for the individual — very urgent,” says Ms. Bracho.  “In public health, saying a kid needs a polio vaccine is easy,” she says, “but talking to people about the way they eat needs more information and training.”  To get the best results, Latino Health Access has discovered that the work is best done at the community level by the people who live there.  “Participation.  That’s how we change this epidemic.  Once you get involved then you learn the rest.”

Take One Step for Your Family's Health

So weight loss is more complicated than we ever imagined. Now what? Take One Step for Your Family’s Health, hosted by Dr. Nancy Snyderman, tackles this compelling question and offers practical answers that can help American families focus on achieving a healthier lifestyle.  The program brings together a panel of experts including scientists on the forefront of medical research as well as doctors and public health advocates who are working hands-on at the community level to educate the public and advocate for the systemic social changes that are essential to support a healthier population.

A major message that emerges from the provocative discussion in Take One Step for Your Family’s Health is the need to shed the guilt if you have a weight problem and reconsider “fat” prejudice if you have been judging overweight individuals for not solving their own weight problems.  Finding solutions to America’s soaring weight gain needs to start with accepting the complexity of the challenge, understanding the biological, psychological and environmental factors that play into obesity, and addressing short-term goals while working to achieve longer-term change.

The experts agree that the best bet lies with prevention in children, because once an individual has a weight problem, it is very hard to turn it around.  The family is key to change.  Cathy Nonas, who is director of the Obesity and Diabetes Programs and North General Hospital in East Harlem, NY, suggests that parents can guide and regulate the family’s diet to eliminate junk food and high-calorie juices and soda while introducing vegetables and low-sugar treats.  Professor James O. Hill, Ph. D., co-founder of America On the Move and a Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, emphasizes that lifestyle changes like reducing TV time while increasing physical activities must also be part of the game plan.  But in the lively discussion, obstacles to these common sense notions quickly surface.  Parents often have their own issues with unhealthy food preferences and resistance to exercise after long and stressful workdays.  They can’t just tell their kids what to eat and to get off the couch, parents need to model this behavior. “When the parents do it, the kids do it, and kids don’t distinguish between what you want them to learn and what you don’t,” notes Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children’s Hospital in Boston and author of the new book, Ending the Food Fight.

Obesity is particularly rampant in low-income communities, and the answers there require a strong economic and public policy component.  Lifestyle and diet changes that are viable in affluent neighborhoods can be much more difficult in poor communities where vegetables might not be affordable or even available, playgrounds can be scarce, and streets are often not a safe place for children to play.  America Bracho, whose community-based family participation health programs are featured in FAT, is also a member of the panel. She says that helping parents to prevent obesity in their children isn’t just about teaching them what to serve for meals, it is also about teaching them to speak up.  “Families can cook for their kids, but families can advocate for their kids,” she says, because both are essential to turn around the obesity epidemic. For a complete list of panelists.

PBS Health Campaign

FAT: What No One Is Telling You is the second program in the PBS Health Campaign, a broadcast and outreach initiative to help Americans come to grips with four urgent health issues. The first special on heart disease premiered in February and subsequent programs to educate the public about cancer and depression are currently in development. 

TAKE ONE STEP: A PBS HEALTH CAMPAIGN is based on the concept that small behavioral changes can add up to big wins.  Leveraging the strength of the nation’s public television stations, the campaign engages national partners and provides web and community-based resources to give families the information, inspiration and concrete tools they need to begin making changes to their lifestyle and improve their health. America On the Move has joined with TAKE ONE STEP and has created tools and resources for families that are looking for ways to take action and begin making small changes to their physical activity and healthful eating behaviors.  America On the Move is a national non-profit that provides individuals, families, organizations and communities with free, practical and trusted weight management solutions.  You can find America On the Move’s free, downloadable materials for families at www.tpt.org/pbsfatinfo.

YMCA of the USA has also joined the campaign as a community partner to raise awareness and reach families and kids with this critical health message in the communities where they live.  With 2,663 YMCAs across the country, the partnership has the potential to reach millions of Americans, giving them the information, inspiration, tactics and support they need to improve their health.  This partnership supports YMCA Activate America™, a national initiative that is rallying YMCAs across the country to help children and adults discover and sustain healthier ways to live, especially those who struggle to adopt and maintain a healthy lifestyle for themselves and/or their family.

Among the events and activities planned across the country is a program at WFSU in Tallahassee, Florida that will supply GPS units to children 9-11 years old with pre-programmed scavenger hunts so that kids can have fun exploring while they are on the move.  PBS Hawaii is sponsoring a 12-week “Fun Family Fitness” program including an interactive online program to track progress.  A workplace program sponsored by KAET in Tempe, Arizona target office workers, encouraging them to take quick 3-4 minute breaks every hour over a three-month period to combat stress and increase energy.  The goal of these initiatives is to make a more active lifestyle a daily habit. 

Production And Funding Credits

FAT: What No One Is Telling You is produced by Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) and executive produced by Emmy Award-winning Naomi S. Boak.  It is produced by the Emmy Award-winning team of Tom Spain and Linda Spain, and directed by Emmy-nominated Andrew Fredericks.  Take One Step for Your Family’s Health is also a production of TPT.  It is produced by Naomi Boak, directed by Bob Lampel, and written by Don Campbell and Ron Fried. GlaxoSmithKline, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS provided major funding for both programs and the Take One Step outreach initiative.

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For more information, please contact:

RoseLynn Marra
914-874-5069
roselynn@kellysalerno.com

Karen Salerno
914-239-7204/02
karen@kellysalerno.com