CHARLES WOOLEY: It's a gastronomic journey into the unknown food that defies description and really should defy consumption. What we find on the menu at Arkansas State Fair is a celebration of everything science and common sense tell us we shouldn't eat. But here they can't get enough of it.
STALLHOLDER: You know, we are famous in the South for frying everything. We fry our grandmothers. We fry everything.
CHARLES WOOLEY: In the deep south they do deep-fry everything, even their dessert. Here, boiling away in its greasy glory, a Snickers bar.
CHARLES WOOLEY: The sobering thought is food like this is no longer just an annual novelty but part of the staple diet. As a result, Americans are now eating themselves to death. Extreme as it might look, these scenes are a snapshot of middle America. More than half of all Americans are overweight and a third of them, doctors warn, are dangerously so. And it's a problem that begins in childhood.
DR KAREN YOUNG: It's called, right now, the perfect storm, meaning that we have these overweight kids and more and more kids are getting heavy, but also the heavy ones are getting heavier.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Jean Paul is 16 years old. He weighs 480 pounds, about 220kg. He's morbidly obese and right now his life hangs in the balance. And according to his doctor, Karen Young, Jean Paul is now showing all the signs of adult-onset diabetes.
DR KAREN YOUNG: This dark ring here and I think on the other side let me see it looked like it was even more prominent. This is telling me that you have a high risk for diabetes.
CHARLES WOOLEY: I look at him and think, whoa, this couldn't happen to me, but somehow it does happen to people.
DR KAREN YOUNG: It does happen to people. And in fact he was the normal size when he was younger. So it can happen to anybody and in this day and age, globally, not just the US, everywhere in the world, we are having to deal with this.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Biologically, the obesity epidemic is the price of human success. To survive the rigours of times past, we were genetically designed to become efficient fat storers. But in this modern life, the lean winter never comes. Today we live in the land of plenty and it's killing us.
MIKE HUCKABEE: The frightening thing is that this current generation of young kids is the first generation in American history who are expected to live a shorter lifespan than their parents or their grandparents. First time in American history, because of obesity. That was me just over a year and 105 pounds ago. Now if I can lose weight, anyone can.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Mike Huckabee is the governor of Arkansas and when it comes to weight loss, this born-again political lightweight knows what he's talking about.
Of course, in Australia we all know the movie Supersize Me, but you have 'Downsize Me'!
MIKE HUCKABEE: Maybe we should make a sequel and call it Downsize Me! But that's really what I've been through.
CHARLES WOOLEY: I mean, you have lost more than 100 pounds. He's leading by example: up before dawn and beginning the day with a power walk. And this former Baptist preacher has pledged to lead his people out of the deep-fried wilderness.
It's something you're passionate about?
MIKE HUCKABEE: I have to be. I have to be because I've seen my own life, the mistakes I made. I'm the poster child for what to do wrong. You know, I'm not out there telling people 'here's what you ought to do'. I'm telling you, I'm the guiltiest person out there. Nobody lived an unhealthier lifestyle than me.
CHARLES WOOLEY: In Arkansas, being fat was never a political liability. Governor Huckabee was seen as a good old boy, solid and reliable. But what might have been alright for the body politic wasn't so good for the body Huckabee.
So how did the whole thing evolve for you?
MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, I had an epiphany of sorts when I was sitting in my doctor's office and he told me I was a Type II diabetic. I had two parents who were diabetic, grandparents who were diabetic. I should have known better and I did know better but I didn't do anything about it.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Now Type II diabetes is the late onset?
MIKE HUCKABEE: Exactly.
CHARLES WOOLEY: The one that comes characteristically with obesity?
MIKE HUCKABEE: Characteristically with obesity and characteristically at a much older age than it hit me at age 47. And I thought, 'this is crazy'. And when the doctor described for me what the future was, I thought, you know, 'this is something I need to fix'.
CHARLES WOOLEY: The future being?
MIKE HUCKABEE: The future being that I was in the last decade of my life without some major lifestyle change.
CHARLES WOOLEY: It was that serious?
MIKE HUCKABEE: Oh, yeah. I was digging my grave with a knife and fork.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Governor Huckabee embarked on a radical plan to save first himself and then the people of Arkansas and more particularly, its children. In the most dramatic step, his state became the first in America, indeed first in the Western world, to pass laws demanding the annual weighing and measuring of every child. That's more than 400,000 kids.
MIKE HUCKABEE: Now this was controversial because some people thought we were going to expose children to ridicule. Let me assure you, I would never do that. I know how much it hurts to be ridiculed for being overweight. Nobody has to tell me how much that hurts. So I would never do that to a child, but I tell you what I would do to a child not to, but for a child is to do everything in our power to help a child to have the tools to overcome a lifestyle that ultimately means, without some changes, this kid is going to be diagnosed diabetic in his teens, he's going to have a laser shot in his eyes when he's 20, he's going to have a heart attack by the time he's 30, he's going to be on full-scale dialysis by the time he's 40. He'll be dead before he's 50. That's not a pleasant outlook.
CHARLES WOOLEY: The results of the first annual weigh-in were shocking. Every child in Arkansas was subjected to a procedure known as the body mass index, the BMI, an equation of height and weight. It found that 40 percent of children were either obese or at risk.
DR KAREN YOUNG: I have lots of families who don't think the BMI health initiative is a good thing, that we were intruding on their lives, but we are already checking for scoliosis and doing hearing and vision screenings. This is just another screening, because it is very, very true that overweight children don't learn as well.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Faced with such a serious problem, action was swift. Parents were forced to confront the news that their kids were fat. At schools, the state forced all canteens to change their menus and children were forced to exercise, with physical education being reintroduced in every school. Which brings us back to Jean Paul, the 16-year-old who's morbidly obese. Tragically, he's also an orphan. Both his parents died from obesity-related diseases. And until the state stepped in, he was facing a similar fate.
DR KAREN YOUNG: Now, I don't want the government telling families what to do. In some cases we may have to do that. Otherwise, the child will die.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Are you telling me the situation is serious enough that a little totalitarianism is worthwhile?
DR KAREN YOUNG: No, because here is the thing: what our plan is, is to identify the overweight kids and let the families know. We've lost the ability to identify overweight by looking at people. We look at people and we don't think they are overweight when they actually are any more. We look at normal-sized kids and think they are too skinny.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Do you think you can change the whole mindset of a community, a state, a country?
MIKE HUCKABEE: Sure we can. We can't do it by this time next year. But over a period of time and I don't have any illusions to think that I personally am going to make this happen across the whole country in my term as governor, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step and the truth is we have to move to a culture of health.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Even more than Australians, Americans hate government that meddles where it's not invited. Going to hell in their own way may be a constitutional right, but in Arkansas, it's also an overindulgence that demanded government action.
MIKE HUCKABEE: This is a crisis and I'm not trying to make this up and just create a crisis. It is a crisis when you see pre-teens being diagnosed with Type II diabetes, knowing that these kids are not going to live out their lifespan and it's not just they're going to die by the time they're 50, the cost of keeping them alive to 50 will eclipse the cost of a healthy person living to 100.
STALLHOLDER: You know, we are famous in the South for frying everything. We fry our grandmothers. We fry everything.
CHARLES WOOLEY: In the deep south they do deep-fry everything, even their dessert. Here, boiling away in its greasy glory, a Snickers bar.
CHARLES WOOLEY: The sobering thought is food like this is no longer just an annual novelty but part of the staple diet. As a result, Americans are now eating themselves to death. Extreme as it might look, these scenes are a snapshot of middle America. More than half of all Americans are overweight and a third of them, doctors warn, are dangerously so. And it's a problem that begins in childhood.
DR KAREN YOUNG: It's called, right now, the perfect storm, meaning that we have these overweight kids and more and more kids are getting heavy, but also the heavy ones are getting heavier.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Jean Paul is 16 years old. He weighs 480 pounds, about 220kg. He's morbidly obese and right now his life hangs in the balance. And according to his doctor, Karen Young, Jean Paul is now showing all the signs of adult-onset diabetes.
DR KAREN YOUNG: This dark ring here and I think on the other side let me see it looked like it was even more prominent. This is telling me that you have a high risk for diabetes.
CHARLES WOOLEY: I look at him and think, whoa, this couldn't happen to me, but somehow it does happen to people.
DR KAREN YOUNG: It does happen to people. And in fact he was the normal size when he was younger. So it can happen to anybody and in this day and age, globally, not just the US, everywhere in the world, we are having to deal with this.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Biologically, the obesity epidemic is the price of human success. To survive the rigours of times past, we were genetically designed to become efficient fat storers. But in this modern life, the lean winter never comes. Today we live in the land of plenty and it's killing us.
MIKE HUCKABEE: The frightening thing is that this current generation of young kids is the first generation in American history who are expected to live a shorter lifespan than their parents or their grandparents. First time in American history, because of obesity. That was me just over a year and 105 pounds ago. Now if I can lose weight, anyone can.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Mike Huckabee is the governor of Arkansas and when it comes to weight loss, this born-again political lightweight knows what he's talking about.
Of course, in Australia we all know the movie Supersize Me, but you have 'Downsize Me'!
MIKE HUCKABEE: Maybe we should make a sequel and call it Downsize Me! But that's really what I've been through.
CHARLES WOOLEY: I mean, you have lost more than 100 pounds. He's leading by example: up before dawn and beginning the day with a power walk. And this former Baptist preacher has pledged to lead his people out of the deep-fried wilderness.
It's something you're passionate about?
MIKE HUCKABEE: I have to be. I have to be because I've seen my own life, the mistakes I made. I'm the poster child for what to do wrong. You know, I'm not out there telling people 'here's what you ought to do'. I'm telling you, I'm the guiltiest person out there. Nobody lived an unhealthier lifestyle than me.
CHARLES WOOLEY: In Arkansas, being fat was never a political liability. Governor Huckabee was seen as a good old boy, solid and reliable. But what might have been alright for the body politic wasn't so good for the body Huckabee.
So how did the whole thing evolve for you?
MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, I had an epiphany of sorts when I was sitting in my doctor's office and he told me I was a Type II diabetic. I had two parents who were diabetic, grandparents who were diabetic. I should have known better and I did know better but I didn't do anything about it.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Now Type II diabetes is the late onset?
MIKE HUCKABEE: Exactly.
CHARLES WOOLEY: The one that comes characteristically with obesity?
MIKE HUCKABEE: Characteristically with obesity and characteristically at a much older age than it hit me at age 47. And I thought, 'this is crazy'. And when the doctor described for me what the future was, I thought, you know, 'this is something I need to fix'.
CHARLES WOOLEY: The future being?
MIKE HUCKABEE: The future being that I was in the last decade of my life without some major lifestyle change.
CHARLES WOOLEY: It was that serious?
MIKE HUCKABEE: Oh, yeah. I was digging my grave with a knife and fork.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Governor Huckabee embarked on a radical plan to save first himself and then the people of Arkansas and more particularly, its children. In the most dramatic step, his state became the first in America, indeed first in the Western world, to pass laws demanding the annual weighing and measuring of every child. That's more than 400,000 kids.
MIKE HUCKABEE: Now this was controversial because some people thought we were going to expose children to ridicule. Let me assure you, I would never do that. I know how much it hurts to be ridiculed for being overweight. Nobody has to tell me how much that hurts. So I would never do that to a child, but I tell you what I would do to a child not to, but for a child is to do everything in our power to help a child to have the tools to overcome a lifestyle that ultimately means, without some changes, this kid is going to be diagnosed diabetic in his teens, he's going to have a laser shot in his eyes when he's 20, he's going to have a heart attack by the time he's 30, he's going to be on full-scale dialysis by the time he's 40. He'll be dead before he's 50. That's not a pleasant outlook.
CHARLES WOOLEY: The results of the first annual weigh-in were shocking. Every child in Arkansas was subjected to a procedure known as the body mass index, the BMI, an equation of height and weight. It found that 40 percent of children were either obese or at risk.
DR KAREN YOUNG: I have lots of families who don't think the BMI health initiative is a good thing, that we were intruding on their lives, but we are already checking for scoliosis and doing hearing and vision screenings. This is just another screening, because it is very, very true that overweight children don't learn as well.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Faced with such a serious problem, action was swift. Parents were forced to confront the news that their kids were fat. At schools, the state forced all canteens to change their menus and children were forced to exercise, with physical education being reintroduced in every school. Which brings us back to Jean Paul, the 16-year-old who's morbidly obese. Tragically, he's also an orphan. Both his parents died from obesity-related diseases. And until the state stepped in, he was facing a similar fate.
DR KAREN YOUNG: Now, I don't want the government telling families what to do. In some cases we may have to do that. Otherwise, the child will die.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Are you telling me the situation is serious enough that a little totalitarianism is worthwhile?
DR KAREN YOUNG: No, because here is the thing: what our plan is, is to identify the overweight kids and let the families know. We've lost the ability to identify overweight by looking at people. We look at people and we don't think they are overweight when they actually are any more. We look at normal-sized kids and think they are too skinny.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Do you think you can change the whole mindset of a community, a state, a country?
MIKE HUCKABEE: Sure we can. We can't do it by this time next year. But over a period of time and I don't have any illusions to think that I personally am going to make this happen across the whole country in my term as governor, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step and the truth is we have to move to a culture of health.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Even more than Australians, Americans hate government that meddles where it's not invited. Going to hell in their own way may be a constitutional right, but in Arkansas, it's also an overindulgence that demanded government action.
MIKE HUCKABEE: This is a crisis and I'm not trying to make this up and just create a crisis. It is a crisis when you see pre-teens being diagnosed with Type II diabetes, knowing that these kids are not going to live out their lifespan and it's not just they're going to die by the time they're 50, the cost of keeping them alive to 50 will eclipse the cost of a healthy person living to 100.