Maybe I’m not the one to talk; I’ve been battling my bulge for most of my life. But during those times I managed to slim down, there was a constant: balance. I ate everything — pizza, burgers, sweets — but in moderation and, coupled with moderate exercise, I managed to maintain a healthy weight. I won’t get into why that’s no longer the case, but I sure as heck don’t blame the food industry — processors or restaurants.

Which brings me to Morgan Spurlock, a filmmaker who set out to prove McDonald’s is evil by eating three meals a day there for a month and then blaming his subsequent decline in health on the fast-food giant.

Well, a reporter at a Chicago-area daily newspaper decided to do a little Spurlocking of his own. Of an age and body type nearly identical to the filmmaker’s, the reporter put himself on a McDonald’s-only regimen for two weeks.

The result? Despite an increase in cholesterol, he actually lost three pounds, decreased his fat mass and dropped a half-inch around the waist.
Hang on, I’m getting to the dairy part.

Of course, the reporter did a few things Spurlock apparently did not. For one, he shied away from value meals and super-sizing. Further, he maintained an active lifestyle that included outdoor activity and using stairs instead of the elevator at work.

And he shunned pop for milk. “I love milk,” the reporter remarked. “A normal meal for me is a QPC (Quarter Pounder with Cheese) and a milk.”

This reporter’s results make a few important statements. One, it is possible to enjoy fast food in moderation as part of a balanced diet and active lifestyle. Two, it is possible to reject the super-size fries and Cokes that are supposedly being forced down the public’s collective throats.

And three, perhaps it’s that milk and its weight-controlling calcium that kept this guy in check. Perhaps he would have lost more weight and stemmed his rising LDLs had he teamed his milk with more diverse dining options now and then — which, by the way, is what he had been doing all along.

The only one who decides what you eat is you. Choice exists among the spectrum of eating options, not necessarily with each individual brand or outlet. Sure, marketing is an important part of business, but anyone without the brain power to resist its siren song has bigger problems than overeating.

So when some snotty filmmaker uses a lamebrain stunt as a way of proving McDonald’s is making you fat, or when CSPI tries to tell you that now milk is part of the problem of childhood obesity, tell them, “It’s common sense, stupid.”

Key leaders from the food industry and nutritional and legal communities will be taking on the causes of and
solutions for obesity at Stagnito
Com­mu­nications’ Obesity Summit next month. Among the speakers will be Miriam Erickson Brown of Anderson Erickson Dairy. Not only is her company one of the leading forces in promoting the health benefits of milk, but Miriam is one of the most enthusiastic advocates of this business that I have been privileged to know.

Back in February, I mentioned you’d be seeing my face here for a while. It’s actually going to be for a while longer.

My colleague, Pamela Accetta Smith, is back from maternity leave and returns to DF as senior editor, and I have taken the reins on a permanent basis. I look forward to our continued work together, using our collective resources to keep making Dairy Field the valuable informational tool that processors have come to expect.