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Super Size Me (2004 Film; Effects Of Eating Fast Food)

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Film records effects of eating only McDonald's for a month

New Zealand Herald:
25.01.2004 12.00pm - By DAVID USBORNE
NEW YORK - Normally sane actors have been known to gain or lose huge amounts of weight for their art. Think of Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary. Directors, of course, never have to undergo such torture. Or so it used to be, until Morgan Spurlock had a bright idea for a film project.

The first clue to his particular misery comes in the title of his documentary, which has become the darling of this year's Sundance Film Festival. It is called Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions and it is a sometimes comic but serious look at America's addiction to fast food.

Spurlock, a tall New Yorker of usually cast-iron constitution, made himself the guinea pig in this dogged investigation into the effects of fast food on the body. He ate only at McDonald's for a month - three meals, every day - and took a camera crew along to record it. If a server offered to super-size his order, he was obliged to accept - and to ingest everything, gherkins and all.

Neither Spurlock, 33, nor the three doctors who agreed to monitor his health during the experiment were prepared for the degree of ruin it would wreak on his body. Within days, he was vomiting up his burgers and battling with headaches and depression. And his sex drive vanished.

When Spurlock had finished, his liver, overwhelmed by saturated fats, had virtually turned to pate. "The liver test was the most shocking thing," said Dr Daryl Isaacs, who joined the team to watch over him. "It became very, very abnormal."

Spurlock put on nearly 12kg over the period and his cholesterol level leapt from a respectable 165 to 230. He told the New York Post: "I got desperately ill. My face was splotchy and I had this huge gut, which I've never had in my life ... It was amazing - and really frightening." And his girlfriend, a vegan chef? "She was completely disgusted by me," he said.

Making the film over several months last year, Spurlock travelled through 20 states, interviewing everyone from fast-food junkies to the US Surgeon General and a lobbyist for the industry. McDonald's, for whom the film can only be a public relations catastrophe, ignored his repeated entreaties for comment.

Spurlock had the idea for the film on Thanksgiving Day 2002, slumped on his mother's couch after eating far too much. He saw a news item about two teenage girls in New York suing McDonald's for making them obese. The company responded by saying their food was nutritious and good for people. Is that so, he wondered? To find out, he committed himself to his 30 days of Big Mac bingeing.

The film does not yet have a distributor and, given the advertising clout of McDonald's, that may prove problematic. But the critics at Sundance seem to have been captivated. Certainly, the film is blessed by good timing. Obesity has in recent months captured headlines as America's new health scourge. The humour of the approach - and Spurlock's own suffering - obviously helps.

At the festival in Park City, Utah, he has had teams handing out "Unhappy Meal" bags on the streets with a few "Fat Fun Facts". For instance, one in four Americans visits a fast-food restaurant every day. And did you know that McDonald's feeds more people around the world every day than the population of Spain? The makers have self-rated the film "F" - for "fat audiences".

McDonald's has finally been forced to comment. "Consumers can achieve balance in their daily dining decisions by choosing from our array of quality offerings and range of portion sizes to meet their taste and nutrition goals," it said in a statement last week.

Spurlock claims that the goal was not to attack McDonald's as such. Among the issues he highlights is the willingness of schools to feed students nothing but burgers and pizza. "If there's one thing we could accomplish with the film, it is that we make people think about what they put in their mouth," he said. "So the next time you do go into a fast-food restaurant and they say, 'Would you like to upsize that?' you think about it and say, 'Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll stick with the medium this time.'"
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http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/7787109.htm
Here's food for thought
By Karen Hershenson
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

PARK CITY, UTAH

THE TRANSFORMATION on screen is dramatic: In just one month, 33-year-old Morgan Spurlock goes from being a slender, robust man to a bloated slug with creaky knees and drastic mood swings.

He gains 25 pounds. His cholesterol soars. His liver function is dangerously impaired. At one point, his doctor gravely warns him about when he might want to call 911.

Yet all this physical and mental distress is self-imposed. In order to make a point about the deteriorating American diet and resulting obesity epidemic, Spurlock vowed to eat nothing but food offered at McDonald's for 30 days. The result is "Super Size Me," one of the hot tickets in the documentary competition at the Sundance Film Festival, which continues here through Sunday.

The film is both thought-provoking and hilarious. We witness Spurlock wolfing down his first super-sized meal. Soon after come the "McGurgles" and the "McGas," and finally he upchucks in the restaurant parking lot, the camera right there.

Later, his girlfriend, a vegan chef, shares another, more intimate result of a fast-food diet -- sagging sexual performance.

"I think the saturated fats are starting to get to his penis," she says.

Ground-breaking documentaries like this one have become a growing element at Sundance. Following the box-office success of films such as "Spellbound," "Winged Migration" and Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine," docs are hot -- there are a record 40-plus of them screening in this year's festival. Even the opening-night film, "Riding Giants," was a documentary.

And the more receptive audiences become, the more the genre evolves. Past Oscar winner Jessica Yu, for example, used a cutting-edge animation technique (and a staff of seven animators) to create "In the Realms of the Unreal," her stunning competition film about Henry Darger, a Chicago recluse who left an amazing legacy -- a 15,000-page novel and hundreds of color-saturated paintings, some more than 10 feet long.

Spurlock, whose work is more in the irreverent, bad-boy vein, agrees that audiences have become more receptive to documentaries because of such pioneers as Moore and Errol Morris ("Thin Blue Line," "Fog of War"), but he also credits TV shows including "The Bachelor" and "The Simple Life" for their growing success.

"In the past few years, with the rise of reality television, I think that's really broken down the barriers of accepting them on a whole new level," he says. "Documentaries are the original reality television."

Spurlock's own dive into an altered reality was more dramatic than he could have imagined. One doctor compared it to "Leaving Las Vegas," in which the Nicolas Cage character tries to drink himself to death in just weeks.

"I felt consistently tired and sick and miserable," says Spurlock. "I don't think anybody realized how bad things were going to get."

Yet the filmmaker insists he wasn't trying to nail the fast-food chain, which never responded to repeated interview requests.

"McDonald's is a symbol for me in the film," says Spurlock. "They're Everyman food. They're all over the world, they're the biggest, and they represent every single fast-food restaurant every place."

He had rules for his McAdventure: he could only eat what was on the menu; he had to try everything; had to eat three square meals a day; and had to super size if it was offered. He worked closely with a team of medical experts, who charted changes in his body. Before the month was over, they were begging him to stop.

Spurlock still thinks the Big Mac is a tasty burger, but labels the Filet O'Fish "a disaster."

Still, the problem extends beyond fast food, he says. It starts at home, where overworked baby boomers are all too willing to tell themselves, "Hey, I do deserve a break today," and eat the majority of meals out.

At press time, Spurlock was negotiating with several potential distributors. But along with a theatrical release, he would love for "Super Size Me" to air on cable (he doubts the networks would touch it), and for it to be shown in schools and on college campuses, where unhealthful eating is rampant.

And while the public may crave sizzling hot fries, they're also starting to crave real stories like this one; films that make you think. They're tired of seeing the same formulas over and over, Spurlock says. Documentaries offer something original.

"We're tired of being spoon-fed such inane curiosities. ... There's only so many times you can watch 'Police Academy 6 or 7.'"
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Sound slike badnwagon jumping to me:

Downsized at McDonald's ; Filmmaker Loses 18 Pounds in Debunking Fast-food Flick

Soso Profiled in The Washington Times
by Soso Whaley
July 4, 2004


Soso Whaley's weight-loss plan veered from the popular low-carb diets. She ate fast food for two months and lost 18 pounds. Ms. Whaley, a 49-year-old animal trainer, last week finished her diet using the menu at McDonald's restaurants. She will highlight her two, 30-day diets in a 60- to 90-minute documentary.

The film, scheduled for release this fall, rebuts several claims made by Morgan Spurlock, who did the documentary "Super Size Me,", Ms. Whaley said. His film showed his weight gain and health problems after eating only McDonald's food for a month.

"The film is not about taking potshots at Mr. Spurlock. I'm not advocating people boycott his movie or go eat for 30 days at McDonald's. I'm just giving another side to the story," said Ms. Whaley, a Kensington, N.H., resident.

The film has no corporate sponsorship from any food or beverage company.

In "Super Size Me," Mr. Spurlock ate at McDonald's restaurants for 30 days with a 5,000-calorie limit, more than twice the 2,200 daily calories recommended for the average man.

He "super-sized" his meal only when asked by the cashier in the 98-minute film. McDonald's Corp., which called Mr. Spurlock's film "irresponsible," announced plans before the film was released in May to phase out its super-size options by the end of the year.

A spokeswoman for Samuel Goldwyn Films, which distributed Mr. Spurlock's film, said Mr. Spurlock was traveling and unavailable for comment.

His film has become part of a growing anti-obesity movement that has tried to blame some of the cause of rising U.S. obesity rates on the food industry. McDonald's and food manufacturer Kraft Foods Inc. have had obesity-related lawsuits filed against them in the past two years.

Food companies have fought back by altering their serving sizes, promoting healthy lifestyles and introducing more low-fat products.

Mr. Spurlock, who is 6 feet 2 inches tall, packed on 25 pounds and his cholesterol level shot up 65 points by the end of the film.

By contrast, Ms. Whaley imposed a limit of 1,800 to 2,000 calories when she started her diet April 1. But her intake would increase up to 3,000 calories "when I gave myself the day off," she said.

She dropped 10 pounds from her 5-foot-3-inch frame in the first month of her experiment, slimming down to 165 from 175. Her cholesterol level fell to 197 from 237 by the beginning of May.

Like Mr. Spurlock, Ms. Whaley said she tried every item on the menu at least once. But she spent about an hour doing moderate exercise three times a week.

Although she did have salads, Ms. Whaley said she stuck with sandwiches, fries, diet sodas and shakes.

"I actually had a much tougher time when I got back in the real world [in May] because I was so used to controlled portion sizes" at the burger chain, she said.

Ms. Whaley went back on the diet in June and lost another 8 pounds, rounding out her weight at 157. Her cholesterol level edged up to 202.

She doesn't advise the fast-food diet for everyone. "I recommend more limiting your calories instead of food choices," she said.

McDonald's spokesman Walt Riker said the Oakbrook, Ill., fast- food chain has had no contact with Ms. Whaley other than giving her permission to film her documentary inside its restaurants.

"We're certainly interested in seeing [Ms. Whaley's] film. It certainly proves what we have been saying from Day One—that there is plenty of choice on the menu for a balanced diet," Mr. Riker said.

Ms. Whaley estimated the cost of the film to be $30,000 to $50,000. That does not include her time spent or the staff help from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank advocating free markets.

The organization gave Ms. Whaley an adjunct fellowship to work with her on the film. The think tank may sponsor a screening of the film in the fall, but has not contributed any money, said spokeswoman Jody Clarke.

Ms. Whaley said she plans to enter her work in several independent film festivals.
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Source

The CEI is interesting - it is sponsored by Exxon:

www.mediatransparency.org/recipients/cei.htm

and Big Tobacco:

www.no-smoke.org/getthefacts.php?dp=d21%7Cd23%7Cp57

This is the most informative:

It postures as an advocate of "sound science" in the development of public policy. In fact, it is an ideologically-driven, well-funded front for corporations opposed to safety and environmental regulations that affect the way they do business.
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www.prwatch.org/improp/cei.html

If I was Morgan Spurlock I might be making my next documentary on those guys ;)
 
In my opinion, the entire idea behind the movie is crap. Who in the world thinks eating ONLY McDonalds is a good idea? I doubt even McDonalds would promote that idea.

It's ridiculous.

-Fitz
 
Fitz said:
In my opinion, the entire idea behind the movie is crap. Who in the world thinks eating ONLY McDonalds is a good idea? I doubt even McDonalds would promote that idea.

It's ridiculous.

-Fitz
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I know plenty of kids who think eating every day at McDonalds would be heaven! I doubt if they will be much impressed by the new wave of advertising to try a salad for a change. These leaflets are not, I suspect, aimed at McD's core market, who don't do a lot of reading!

Sadly, I doubt if they will be the people going to the movie either. :(
 
James Whitehead said:
I know plenty of kids who think eating every day at McDonalds would be heaven!
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The key word in the above sentence is "kids".

Again, its just my opinion. I think it's like making an entire documentary about chopping a finger off a day . . . then at the end the conclusion is "chopping off your fingers isn't good for you." Really? No shit. Thanks.

Anyway, not my cup of tea, but I guess some people like that sort of thing.


-Fitz
 
The McDonalds stunt in Supersize Me is really a jumping off point for a criticism of American eating habits in the film. It's actually pretty thought provoking, although he doesn't cover one of the reasons that people exist on fast food is because they have no other choice. Organic stuff can be expensive!
 
Fitz said:
James Whitehead said:
I know plenty of kids who think eating every day at McDonalds would be heaven!
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The key word in the above sentence is "kids".

...
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And that's why so much of McDonalds huge advertising revenue is spent on advertising direct to kids. So that they'll drag their screaming parents into the awful plastic snack shitholes, next time they're all on an outing and demand a Happy Meals birthday party, so that their little pals can stuff themselves with the addictive fried fat, salt, sugar, starch and chemical additives snacks.

And, they get a free shitty litle plastic toy, too.
 
AndroMan said:
And that's why so much of McDonalds huge advertising revenue is spent on advertising direct to kids. So that they'll drag their screaming parents into the awful plastic snack shitholes
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er...yeah, which explains why the latest ad campaign has a couple after a one nights stand eating a bagel breakfast. fits the kid demographic square on don't it. ;) (And no it's not just on in the evenings, it was on this morning too slap in the ad breaks during MoM)

I think mcdonalds is all too easy a target and vastly overshadows the shite kids eat at home. It's a whipping boy for irresponsibilities elsewhere. The company serves up crap and people eat there. so what? They try and change their menues and reactions like those on these threads occur. I'm overwhelmed with surprise. what the hell are people expecting?

I mean why worry about just mcdonalds, when they get fed crap at school too, and at home with parents too lazy to cook in preference of shoving crap in the microwave and down their kids throats?

I think in all fairness, mcdonalds is shite but it's really down to people.

it's the exact same argument as the person who smokes ninety a day and then sues the tabacco company because they have lung cancer (add mock surprise).
 
My wife just emailed me this story:

Mcflick myth gobbled up

LORI COOLICAN, EDMONTON SUN




Morgan Spurlock of documentary Supersize Me fame ate nothing but McDonald's food for a month, with gruesome results. Local teacher Les Sayer did the same - and lost 17 pounds.

The difference?

Spurlock parked his expanding butt on the couch, while Sayer worked his buns off on the treadmill, stair-climber and weight-bench five or six hours a week.

BENEFITS OF EXERCISE

"It's a real testament to the benefits of exercise," the Norquest College and Metro Continuing Education teacher said yesterday, before ending his 30-day "McLes Diet" experiment with a final greasy meal at the Oliver Square golden arches, 11660 104 Ave.

Using nutritional information on the McDonald's website, the 39-year-old calculates he scarfed down twice the recommended amount of fat and as much as 7,000 milligrams of salt every day.

Though he's still waiting for the results of his final blood work, he says his blood pressure is down to 134/73 from 136/88.

"I feel really good."

Sayers says he has absolutely no affiliation with the hamburger chain, and he's not trying to promote McDonald's food.

He also paid for all of his fare at McDonald's during the experiment.

And if you think he would be sick at the sight of a Big Mac by now, you'd be wrong. He's still a fry-munching machine.

"I love the stuff," he said. "I probably won't have McDonald's for three meals a day tomorrow, but if that's what's around, then maybe I will. I'm a bit of a junkaholic."

He started the experiment to prove a point to some of his students about the objectivity of the Supersize Me documentary, but now says it's more a continuation of Spurlock's project.

The McLes Diet proves the importance of exercise in the same way Supersize Me drove home the consequences of poor nutrition combined with a lazy lifestyle, he says.

Supersize Me was passed over for an Academy Award Sunday. The film seemed to blame McDonald's for Spurlock's illness and obesity, Sayers says.

"In the interests of balance and objectivity, I hope to dispel that myth. I'm saying if you exercise and you don't overeat, you pretty much free yourself up to eat whatever you want."

GUEST-SPEAKER GIG

The University of Alberta Students' Union has booked Spurlock as a guest speaker April 14, as part of the University's Revolutionary Speakers series. Tickets are on sale through Ticketmaster.

"It's interesting timing, since we've had (Spurlock) booked since last summer," said Duncan Taylor, Students' Union vice-president for student life. "It might be a good chance to have some dialogue and debate about it."

Neither Spurlock nor a spokesman for Supersize Me could be reached for comment yesterday.
 
I think they're missing one point which Spurlock made in the flick: before his Mcbinge, he was an active New Yorker who walked everywhere. Once he started his experiment, he restricted himself to walking only as much as the average American. I don't recall the exact figure but it was under two miles a day.
 
Leaferne said:
I think they're missing one point which Spurlock made in the flick: before his Mcbinge, he was an active New Yorker who walked everywhere. Once he started his experiment, he restricted himself to walking only as much as the average American. I don't recall the exact figure but it was under two miles a day.
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still doesn't paint the same picture he tries to paint in that mcdonalds is supposedly attacking moderation.

take common sense out of the equation with anything and you'll end up in some kind of trouble or another. Again, an example where we'd much rather demonise something else than blame ourselves.
 
Morgan Spurlock's new film to attack 'biased' science

Paul Arendt
Tuesday December 20, 2005
The Guardian

Morgan Spurlock, the film-maker who spent a month eating nothing but McDonald's meals for the documentary Super Size Me, will tackle scientific spending in his next project.

Spurlock has bought the film rights to Chris Mooney's bestseller The Republican War on Science, which examines the US administration's spending on a range of scientific topics from stem cell research to missile defence. The book argues that such funding is dominated by an extreme rightwing agenda that is unwilling to distinguish between legitimate research and ideologically driven pseudo-science.

Announcing the project, Spurlock said: "There was a time when science was respected by politicians and government officials, and when the information obtained through unbiased scientific exploration was used for the better of society. Today, all of that is being ignored, manipulated and/or used incorrectly to further political agendas. Now more than ever, we need the real answers to the big questions."

He will start work on the film next year.
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http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0 ... 89,00.html
 
no i dont want it large

In the united states you can buy a dvd called "Supersize Me".IT tells how bad fast foods are and what they are really made of and how unhealthy they are .It will turn you off going to Mcdonalds and Burger King.
 
It was shown on Channel 4 a while ago, and I have the DVD. It's a brilliant documentary - very scary. I don't think the point of it was just that "people get fat eating fast food" (as I have see suggested elsewhere) - that's kind of obvious. What was really awful was that the dieticians' predictions of what would happen after a month of eating McDonalds were were way off - he didn't just gain weight, his liver was well on the way to destruction and his blood sugar and cholesterol went through the roof. The conclusion was that people shouldn't eat fast food more than twice a year.

There's an extra on the DVD which didn't make it into the final film, but they demonstrated how long these foods last when left out in the air before they go off. The freshly made burger from the local restaurant went off in a day, the McDonalds burger took something like two weeks, and the chips, sorry, fries, did not break down at all. Just think about that sitting in your guts. Bleurgh.
 
I used to have a horrible job working on the production line of the factory which was (and maybe still is) the sole UK supplier of 'fresh' salad to McDonalds. I can assure you that it was far from fresh - especially as it usually sat around on the factory floor for two or three days before it was even processed (poor logistics management there, I guess).

Quite often the lettuces etc were beginning to go 'off' by the time they reached the production line. (If you saw them on a market stall you wouldn't touch them). Our job was to tear away all the brown bits and throw the leaves that still looked fresh back on to the conveyor belt. They were then dipped in a chlorine solution to kill off bacteria, passed though a wash which supposedly cleaned off all the chlorine, then vacuum sealed and shipped off to McD's.

Lovely jubbly.
 
Not wishing to get back into the attitudes to obesity discussion again - after all we have a separate thread for that! - I have to say that I did find Supersize Me fairly annoying.

Spurlock's gurning, together with his insufferably smug vegan girlfriend, grated in virtually every scene and the whole premise seemed rather false - yes, eating nothing but McDonald's three times a day is unlikely to do one much good, but it's not possible to extrapolate from that fact that a burger every week or so is likely to do any harm. It's rather like following someone drinking 3 bottles of whiskey a day and not eating and then saying that the subsequent damage proves that all alcohol is harmful.
 
Worked for me

I got the video and I was glad I did.I joined weight Watchers and a friend at work recommended this to me.I used to go to Burger King all the Time.Now BK and Carls jr are completely off my diet.Now I have to work on diet coke and aspartemine
 
oh come on, the guy's name is Morgan Spurlock , how can you get more weird that THAT?!!!

oh, maybe that mustache.


If he doesn't detonate a giant psychic mutant squid in Times square, I will be disappointed.
 
Id rather watch Ray Mears eat six big macs.

And I dont find him very interesting.
 
I got the video and I was glad I did.I joined weight Watchers and a friend at work recommended this to me.I used to go to Burger King all the Time.Now BK and Carls jr are completely off my diet.Now I have to work on diet coke and aspartemine
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I agree with the previous posters who attack the whole premise of the movie.

Doubtless it is bad for one's health to eat McDonalds three times a day and take no exercise. However, it does not necessarily follow that a burger and fries once a week, say, will cause any harm whatsoever.

It's rather like someone drinking two bottles of whiskey every day for a month and then using the results to claim that the odd glass of wine or beer with a meal will lead to dire health problems.

Frankly, I find Spurlock and his nauseating vegan girlfriend far more sickening than anything else in the film, and I speak as someone who loathes Maccas.
 
Yes, its better to eat a diet consisting of fatty meat, a bit of bread, some milk, and maybe the odd tea or coffee.

Forget the greens, your mother was wrong.

This is the diet eaten by many traditional people today, and also in all probability your ancestors...they did just fine.

However they did get out a bit more.
 
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