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Super Size Me
Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock put himself on the map with a groundbreaking and genuinely frightening film called Super Size Me, a thoughtfully documented look at the effect that the fast food industry has had on this country that received an Oscar nomination for Best Feature Documentary, though for this reviewer, this movie belongs in the horror genre. I can't think of any film experience in the last 50 years that terrified me as much as this one did.
Spurlock begins the 2004 film with some mind-blowing statistics regarding nutrition and health in the United States. Apparently, America has the largest overweight population on the planet and the city with the most overweight people is Houston, Texas. Spurlock's research leads him to the hypothesis that one of the biggest contributors to this problem is McDonalds, offering himself as the guinea pig in a very dangerous experiment: Spurlock decides to eat nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days. He has chosen to eat all three meals a day at Mickey D's, has pledged to try every item on the menu before the 30 days is over, and only super sizes his meals if the counter person ask him.
Spurlock put a lot of thought into making this experiment authentic. Before he begins this bizarre diet, he is examined by a team of doctors to document his health at the start, which was deemed practically perfect. Spurlock's humorous approach to this became less and less amusing as the man gained 17 pounds in twelve days and almost 25 pounds when it was over. There is a horrifying scene about 10 days in where he is seen sitting at a drive thru window, consuming a super size Happy Meal. Consuming the entire meal took about 23 minutes and when he was done, he threw up.
It was fascinating that when he would check in with doctors during this dangerous journey, they begged him to stop but he wouldn't. Even the totally understandable dismay from his vegan girlfriend does not deter Spurlock. As the film progressed, we learned that this experiment seriously affected Spurlock's heart, liver, and his sexual functions. He is observed waking up in the middle of the night on Day 22, being unable to breathe and suffering from chest pains.
Don't get me wrong, Spurlock does not blame this battle with obesity completely on McDonalds. Other subjects are broached like lack of proper exercise, food industries being tight-lipped behind their motives, school lunches being prepared with mostly pre-processed foods, and lack of access to general nutritional information, but watching what Morgan Spurlock does to himself, physically and emotionally, was enough to keep me off Big Macs and fries for awhile. Spurlock made a sequel in 2017 centering on chicken fast food.
Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock put himself on the map with a groundbreaking and genuinely frightening film called Super Size Me, a thoughtfully documented look at the effect that the fast food industry has had on this country that received an Oscar nomination for Best Feature Documentary, though for this reviewer, this movie belongs in the horror genre. I can't think of any film experience in the last 50 years that terrified me as much as this one did.
Spurlock begins the 2004 film with some mind-blowing statistics regarding nutrition and health in the United States. Apparently, America has the largest overweight population on the planet and the city with the most overweight people is Houston, Texas. Spurlock's research leads him to the hypothesis that one of the biggest contributors to this problem is McDonalds, offering himself as the guinea pig in a very dangerous experiment: Spurlock decides to eat nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days. He has chosen to eat all three meals a day at Mickey D's, has pledged to try every item on the menu before the 30 days is over, and only super sizes his meals if the counter person ask him.
Spurlock put a lot of thought into making this experiment authentic. Before he begins this bizarre diet, he is examined by a team of doctors to document his health at the start, which was deemed practically perfect. Spurlock's humorous approach to this became less and less amusing as the man gained 17 pounds in twelve days and almost 25 pounds when it was over. There is a horrifying scene about 10 days in where he is seen sitting at a drive thru window, consuming a super size Happy Meal. Consuming the entire meal took about 23 minutes and when he was done, he threw up.
It was fascinating that when he would check in with doctors during this dangerous journey, they begged him to stop but he wouldn't. Even the totally understandable dismay from his vegan girlfriend does not deter Spurlock. As the film progressed, we learned that this experiment seriously affected Spurlock's heart, liver, and his sexual functions. He is observed waking up in the middle of the night on Day 22, being unable to breathe and suffering from chest pains.
Don't get me wrong, Spurlock does not blame this battle with obesity completely on McDonalds. Other subjects are broached like lack of proper exercise, food industries being tight-lipped behind their motives, school lunches being prepared with mostly pre-processed foods, and lack of access to general nutritional information, but watching what Morgan Spurlock does to himself, physically and emotionally, was enough to keep me off Big Macs and fries for awhile. Spurlock made a sequel in 2017 centering on chicken fast food.