If you’ve seen the documentary, “What the Health”, you may have been mislead. If you haven’t already seen it, read through this for some background before you get thrown for a loop.
“What the Health” is a well done documentary in many respects, however, it is doing one large disservice to its audience. The documentary filmmakers decided to tackle the issue of conventionally raised meats in the standard American diet – a noble issue to address.
At the expense of millions of individual’s health, however, they completely discredit the issue of sugar consumption and its relation to diabetes.
The documentary tells people that if they simply go vegan that they will not be at risk for diabetes, however, this is a large misrepresentation of the disease and how it has rapidly increased in our population.
It may fit a movie plot and satisfy viewers to boil down an issue to one single factor, however, this is extremely irresponsible especially in the form of a documentary where many people may be getting their health information from.
To say that meat is the only issue in the diets of those who suffer from chronic disease and poor health is not only incorrect but it’s a dangerous message.
Veganism can be healthy, it can also be done very unhealthily. The same goes for paleo, keto and any way of eating that is most often marketed to the masses. If you are not educated in the physiology of the body and the best way to eat when you are adopting a new diet then you can end up doing yourself a lot more harm than good.
This is where the ethical responsibility of a documentary filmmaker should shine – documentaries are meant to expose the truth about a subject and leave the viewer more educated than when they started.
Now we have a large group of people who may think that if they just cut out the meat from their diet, they are automatically decreasing their risk of diabetes. But what if their sugar consumption goes through the roof once they become vegan? This can lead to a much larger health risk than they were at before going vegan.
The idea is to find a balance and realize that there is nuance to the way humans eat. Without individuals eating different diets around the world, we would never be able to preserve the biodiversity of our Earth.