And combined with our FED UP Challenge, the 10 day sugar-free challenge that over 65,000 people have taken after seeing the film, we’ve been able to change thousands of lives, making people more aware of what’s in the food they eat and actually altering their diets. Just look at some of the lives we’ve changed to see that it works.

When we started making this film, we thought we knew a lot about health and nutrition, but we were blown away by what we discovered. Sugar in small amounts is fine. (In fact, three teaspoons a day is still a safe amount for a child to consume). But most of us are actually consuming around 22 teaspoons—that’s more than SEVEN times the maximum amount, according to the American Heart Association. In such large quantities, sugar is as toxic and addictive as tobacco, alcohol, and cocaine. And we’re making our kids addicts, plain and simple. On TV, on our cell phones, in video games, inside the home and out. American students start out their days with sugary orange juice (ounce for ounce more sugar than a Coke!) and sugary cereals. Schools use candy to reward good behavior and grades. At lunch, French fries, nachos, pizza and chocolate milk are still often the norm. Sports practice often includes donuts and sugary sports drinks.

This is not an accident. Companies are targeting our kids and families with relentless advertisements and they are phenomenally successful! Eighty percent of the food products in our stores have added sugar. While 90% of kids in America drink one soda a day—that’s 10 teaspoons of sugar. And ONE can of soda a day increases a kid’s chances of obesity by 60%.

What we’re left with is the greatest public health crisis of our time. This is the first generation of American children expected to live SHORTER lives than their parents.

This is not just about dieting or exercise. This is about knowledge and power. This is about our kids, health, happiness, and the future of our nation.

We could give every teacher in America the tools they needed to offer a quality food education to their students. We’ve heard so many of you–parents, students, and teachers–about how FED UP has inspired you to change that you’ve challenged us to make the film widely available to schools.

We heard you and we’re ready to meet that challenge, but we’re going to need your help. The system for distributing films like FED UP to schools is slow, expensive, and bureaucratic. It requires a teacher to fill out countless forms, find funding, and often create their own lesson plans and curriculum. To get around this, we’ve designed our own system to offer unlimited use of the film and educational materials at no cost to teachers.

The team behind FED UP has provided the initial funding to make this possible, but we need an additional $150,000 to pay for the hard costs of implementing this program and promoting it to teachers across the country.

A donation of just $15 makes it possible for us to give a FED UP Educational Kit to teacher who shouldn’t have to go out-of-pocket to buy a DVD for their classrooms, or spend precious time and energy obtaining the necessary approvals and licenses for a single screening. This kit includes a copy of the film with an unlimited use screening license, individualized lesson plans for grades K-12, and resources for teachers and students to set up nutrition and healthy eating programs that go beyond just watching the film.

We estimate that our funding goal of $150,000 will allow us to provide a FED UP Educational Kit to as many as 10,000 teachers. If we we’re fortunate enough to exceed our funding goal, then we can go even further, working closely with our education partners to expand the FED UP Food Education program to all of America’s classrooms. This would include bringing the filmmakers and FED UP team members to screenings, providing resources for local organizations to go into schools and work with administrators, and providing basic resources like healthy snacks to go along with screenings and seeds to start school gardens.

Fed Up’s Kickstarter page.