Comedian and health writer Tom Naughton made "Fat Head" to debunk what he claims to be myths propagated by the film "Super Size Me."
"I was offended by two things: One, the premise (that) it's McDonald's fault people are getting fatter," he said. "I was also offended, as a computer programmer, that his math doesn't add up. He said he was going to eat three meals a day and only supersize if they asked him. He only supersized, according to the credits, nine times. That's twice a week."
"Fat Head" premiers at the Guild Cinema Friday at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. for one night. Local composer Tom Monahan wrote the film's music.
For the film, Naughton went on a fast-food diet for 30 days, eating mostly at McDonald's and sometimes elsewhere, and lost two pounds. He said he now even considers saturated fat a health food.
"The whole idea saturated fats and animal fats are bad for you sprang from a theory that those foods led to heart disease," he said. "The theory was so appealing to the scientific community. They basically adopted it, promoted and turned it into national policy long before it was ever tested. By the time the real research was conducted, it was too late. It had become government policy. There were huge amounts of money behind this idea."
Naughton said the most Morgan Spurlock (writer and director of "Super Size Me") could have eaten in one day, according to the film, is 3,500 calories.
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"But the guy was consuming 5,000 calories every day, so I did the math," Naughton said. "To get the 5,000 calories, I have to eat a supersized lunch, a supersized dinner and two desserts.. Then I started doing research into what actually makes us fat, what makes us sick, with the idea that I would eat a fast-food diet and preferably lose weight. And as I started digging into the research, I discovered most of what we think we know about healthy eating is flat-out not true."
He said the body thrives on animals fats, olive oil and fat from nuts, and our brain functions better with them.
"Over the decades, a disproportionate amount of fats have come from what I call 'Frankenstein fats' - corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated oils," he said. "Our bodies don't know what to do with this stuff because a human being running around in the wild could not get corn oil."
Corn oil has to be chemically extracted, which means we take in these oils in doses that do not exist in nature, he said.
"Those kinds of fats do lead to heart disease and cancer," he said. "So the idea is not avoid fat. It's to eat the right kind of fat. That's the basic message in the film. On top of all that, it's funny."
He interviews a handful of doctors in "Fat Head," including Dr. Michael Eades, who wrote the bestselling book Protein Power.
"He treats thousands of obese patients," Naughton said. "He said, 'I had people tell me about binging on chips, French fries, binging on candy, on cake. I never had a patient confess to binging on eggs or binging on steak.' Nobody goes out and binges on three steaks. But they will eat a quart of ice cream. They'll buy a box of cookies and eat the entire box. Fat has a completely different effect on our feeling of satiety."
'Fat Head'
Friday, 7 p.m. & 9 p.m.
Guild Cinema
$7 general/$5 students
