Britain’s Fat Fight With Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
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- Episode
- Episode 4
- Broadcast Info
- 2019 (59 mins)
- Description
- Britain is already the fattest country in Western Europe and if current trends continue, more than 50% of us will be obese by 2050. There’s no doubt that our poor diet and lack of exercise is slowly killing us... as well as crippling the NHS. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is back with the last instalment of his BBC One series on a national health crisis that he’s determined to do something about. In this final showdown, he’s going to examine some of the misleading marketing claims on "healthier" products, unveil the truth about why we Brits love to snack and challenge a family to rethink their portion sizes. And, after almost 100,000 people sign Hugh’s letter to the Health Secretary, he’s finally gets the interview he’s been after for months, discovering some exciting changes that are on the horizon. British people snack more than any other European country and since the last series aired, lots of people have told Hugh about the foods they find irresistible. To find out more, he runs an experiment to uncover which snacks have got us completely hooked. When he takes his findings to scientist Dr. Giles Yeo, he discovers a surprising new theory about one particular combination of ingredients we can’t help but find irresistible - and how the food industry uses it to create treats we can’t stop eating. One of the main drivers of obesity is the simple fact that we’re all eating too much. Hugh visits a family in Torquay, with a father who wants help with his diet to stay healthy for his daughters and shift some pounds. Hugh’s challenges the family to transform their eating habits with a few simple and memorable tricks to reduce the portions on their plates. Hugh’s next investigation is into a new food product that’s revolutionizing the snacking market: healthy snack bars. But are they as healthy as they seem to be? With high levels of sugar and fat, many of them aren’t all too different to a standard chocolate bar, but you’d never guess from the way they’re branded. After emails from the big food companies come back with some big excuses, Hugh puts on his lab coat for a bit of citizen science... and soon finds out that the public think they’re being misled. Hugh heads to Westminster with Jamie Oliver to talk to MPs about the obesity crisis. Thanks to people power he finally gets the chance to put his questions directly to the Health Minister and sees many of the issues he’s raised throughout the series addressed in some exciting announcements - but are they going to be enough? In a final fight back against fat, Hugh sees the "Veg Power" advertising campaign which began last year go to a whole new level, in the hope it will change our kids’ attitudes to vegetables once and for all...
- Genre
- Medicine; Nutrition; Government; Health & Social Care
How to cite this record
The Open University, "Britain’s Fat Fight With Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/232755 (Accessed 09 Jan 2025)