“Fed Up,” a new documentary exploring the prevalence of added sugar in the American diet and how it causes childhood obesity to persist, opens today in select theaters across the country. The film traces the history of dietary guidelines and other food policies in the U.S., alongside the increasing rates of obesity, diabetes, and other health problems. Among other points, the film aims to show similarities between the food and tobacco industries, emphasizing the view that food manufacturers are in business to make money rather than improve people’s health. “Fed Up” was produced by Katie Couric and Laurie David (who also produced “An Inconvenient Truth”) and was directed by Stephanie Soechtig. It follows the lives of four teenagers struggling with their weight and includes interviews with former President Bill Clinton, former FDA commissioner David Kessler, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Robert Lustig, authors Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman, and about a dozen others. The idea for the film began with Couric, who had been covering the obesity epidemic throughout her journalistic career and was looking to put together a comprehensive exploration of the issue. First she teamed up with Soechtig, and then David says she received an “out-of-the-blue” email from Couric asking if she “would like to do ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ on food with me.” David said she immediately agreed. “It’s funny because I thought I knew a lot about food, Katie thought she knew a lot about food, and so did Stephanie, but there are things in this film that we had no clue about,” she said at the Washington, D.C., premiere of the film on Wednesday night. Also speaking at the premiere were U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ). “The film is a devastating portrayal of how our food is being made more and more unhealthy by big businesses with the active complicity of our current public policies,” said an impassioned DeLauro, who also said she believes the film will “save lives.” Ahead of its wider release, “Fed Up” has already been controversial. The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) has released a statement in response to the film, stating that it “provides an inaccurate view” of the packaged food industry. GMA’s statement continued, “Rather than identifying successful policies or ongoing efforts to find real and practical solutions to obesity, it adopts a short-sighted, confrontational and misleading approach by cherry-picking facts to fit a narrative, getting the facts wrong, and simply ignoring the progress that has been made over the last decade in providing families with healthier options at home and at school.”