Australian filmmaker gained 22 pounds eating foods that most parents think are healthy; visited Ky. to see 'Mountain Dew mouth'

An Australian filmmaker, while maintaining his normal caloric intake and eating standard grocery store items, ate the equivalent of 40 teaspoons of sugar a day for two months and gained 22 pounds, expanded his weight size and developed pre-diabetes, reports The Orange County Register, in a story republished in the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Damon Gameau visited rural Kentucky to observe rotten teeth caused by "Mountain Dew Mouth" for the documentary, "That Sugar Film," which is available on videostreaming services.

image: www.npr.org

"I wasn't eating any junk food," Gameau told the Register in a phone interview from Melbourne, Australia. "I was eating these perceived health foods that most parents would give their kids."

The Register notes that hidden sugar, in products like high-fructose corn syrup, has been added to most products since food companies started lowering the fat content in their products.

"Even if you're taking beverages out of the equation, there's more and more sugar creeping into more and more different foods," Michael Goran, director of the University of Southern California's Childhood Obesity Research Center, told the Register.

The Food and Drug Administration has proposed changing food labels to include the amount of added sugars, separate from natural sugars, that occur in foods. "Added sugars provide no additional nutrient value, and are often referred to as 'empty calories,'" the agency said in an explanation of the proposal.