Big Food helped create the obesity crisis. Should the same industry be allowed to profit from the solution?
A Matter of Fat is a podcast for anyone who has no idea what they think about weight, bodies and the rapidly changing conversation around them.
Hosted by journalist Rose Stokes, who brings 30 years of lived experience with weight and obesity, and Dr Giles Yeo, a University of Cambridge scientist who has spent three decades studying why people are small, medium or large in our food environment, this podcast brings together lived experience and science without pretending to have all the answers.
In episode five, Rose and Giles examine how ultra-processed food has reshaped our diets, appetites and health. They ask whether medication can repair the damage without letting policymakers and the food industry off the hook.
We cover:
• What “ultra-processed food” actually means and why the label can be misleading
• Whether UPFs are genuinely addictive
• Why processing can make calories easier for our bodies to absorb
• How food manufacturers engineer products that are cheap, convenient and difficult to resist
• Why genetics affect our appetites, food choices and responses to marketing
• The link between UPF consumption, poverty and obesity
• Why condemning supermarket bread can reveal more about privilege than health
• Whether unhealthy food should be taxed and healthier options subsidised
• How schools could help build a healthier food culture
• Whether GLP-1 medication is an antidote to our modern food environment
• Why weight-loss drugs must not become an excuse to avoid meaningful food reform
• Giles’s experience of seeing a close family member respond to GLP-1 medication
• Rose’s fears about her children inheriting her struggles with weight
• Plus, Rose revisits Slimming World and awards it zero doughnuts out of ten
This episode contains a paid partnership with Wild Nutrition. Visit https://www.wildnutrition.com/amatteroffat to learn more about the offer mentioned in the show.
Transparency:
Professor Giles Yeo consults and speaks for Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly and Amgen, and has received research grant funding from Novo Nordisk and Amgen. He is joining Amgen’s cardiometabolic scientific advisory board and also consults for Voy. Industry funds most obesity research, and these relationships are typical for senior researchers in the field.
Rose Stokes has taken GLP-1 medication and writes about weight and the pharmaceutical industry as a freelance journalist.
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Rose Stokes: https://www.instagram.com/rosestokes/
Giles Yeo: https://www.instagram.com/gilesyeo/
Questions, thoughts, constructive criticism or a story you want to share? Email us at amatteroffatpod@gmail.com
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