Darryl Roberts' 'The Thin Commandments' Explores America's Obsession With Weight And Not Health (VIDEO)

At first glance, Darryl Roberts is an unlikely advocate for healthy living. By America's standards (and recent "fat" guidelines, as he calls them) Roberts is obese, along with LeBron James, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Tom Cruise, Will Smith and Christian Bale.

This skewed scale is precisely why Roberts believes the nation's BMI system needs to be outlawed, a theory he's on a mission to prove in his new film "America The Beautiful: The Thin Commandments."

"We have a health problem, not a weight problem," Roberts told CNN. His beliefs don't discount our nation's obesity epidemic, but rather challenge the standard being used to gauge it, one that he says is erroneous (the BMI) and largely the work of diet companies out to make money.

It was invented in like 1830 ... and it was invented to show sizes of populations. Like, for instance, the entire population of the United States. It was never intended to be used for an individual diagnosis of someone's health and how much they should weigh. That came in the 1970s with this guy Ancel Keys when he reformulated it to the current BMI thing.

Then in 1998, some of the scientific advisers of Weight Watchers went to the government and said, "Hey, you know what? The number that's used for the overweight category for BMI should be lowered." And the government did it. They lowered it. And when they lowered it, literally 25 million people became overweight, overnight. But guess what: Those are new customers now for the dieting industry.

Roberts believes that if Americans focus instead on achieving a healthy lifestyle -- limiting fast food and exercising, for example -- then we'll be a healthier nation overall, weather we lose weight or not.

Chronicling his own journey, as well as others', Robert's film uncovers a deluge of factors that he says are contributing to body dissatisfaction (among both women and men, a population he believes is largely overlooked but equally targeted in the diet debate), many of which are being promoted by doctors, schools, the government and even the First Lady of the United States.

Roberts took up his issues with Michelle Obama last month, in an open letter to her on The Huffington Post. In September Roberts expressed "disgust" over a children's book title Maggie Goes on a Diet aimed at readers as young as six.

When he isn't after this moving target in the war on weight, Roberts is screening his film at universities, eating disorder clinics and social organizations across the country.

WATCH:

Comments

[Lamar Chapman III]

11:39 PM on 11/22/2011

Greetings America:

What's going to happen when the rest of us find out that "Black Friday" wasn't a Holiday for us?

LAMAR C. CHAPMAN III
Oak Brook, Illinois

[Garcia Gomez]

06:59 PM on 11/19/2011

i need 2 see this movie like yesterday. i'm so sick of losing/gaining the same 50 lbs repeatedly

[emmeaki]

11:14 PM on 11/18/2011

I just get upset when people harp on BMI or weight without regard to height and muscle tone instead of focusing on actual health. I know thin people who haven't exercised since high school P.E. and they eat crap, drink soda, etc. yet no one seems to be concerned with their health. Of course no one should be extremely overweight, but if we really want to talk about health, let's include everyone.

[syds180turn]

09:11 PM on 11/18/2011

There is not a day that goes by that some type of weight issue isn't brought up. I haven't had a conversation with family and friends in the last 15 yrs. that hasn't included weight and dieting. The problem in my mind is simple...step away from the high fat, high caloric and surgery foods on a day-to-day basis. Get your butt up and at least three times a week for a minimum of 30 minutes, do some type of aerobic exercise. Walking is as free as a bird...you can walk around your neighborhood, walk to the market, walk to the pharmacy, it doesn't matter where you walk..just start walking. People nowadays just want to sit in front of their TV's, tweet all day, Facebook and every other sedentary activity or lack thereof. Most people know exactly what they need to do, it's just getting the motivation to do it.

[jason83]

07:10 PM on 11/18/2011

Whenever I hear of BMI being used as a determinant of health, I have to cringe. It's where the body fat is on a person, not how much they weigh, that makes much more of a difference.

[barbintheboonies]

06:38 PM on 11/18/2011

Fat stored in your body especially around your heart is very bad. High blood pressure and diabetes usually follow Listen to the professionals they see patients every day that are heart attacks waiting to happen.

[DanSc]

06:05 PM on 11/18/2011

If you have a high BMI, you're not a customer for the diet industry, you're a customer for the insulin and mortuary industry. Just put down the fork, drink water like you're drinking soda now, eat carrots like you've been stuffing your face with hot dogs, and go for a walk.