It's a question with some point. It's corollary is: Why do we hate people whom we define as weaker than ourselves? Why do some of us enjoy humiliating and punishing others who are defenseless?
Why do we buy supermarket tabloids and gloat over pictures of celebrities now grown old or fat? I have a feeling the answer lies deep in human nature and if anyone ever looks into it, it will taste worse than prune yogurt.
I also found the statistics kind of enlightening. God, we collectively put away a lot of sugar and salt! But one of the nutritionists had me puzzled, saying the most of the sugar Spurlock had put away was refined, implying that this is the worst kind.
I'm no nutritionist but I'd thought that all starches -- as complex as pasta or as simple as raw sugar -- were broken down into monosaccharides in the gut before being absorbed. What I mean is that the body can't tell organic Tupelo honey from a Moon Pie as far as its sugar content is concerned.
I may be wrong on this point but it really doesn't matter in context because Spurlock's movie is rather obviously so wrong on so many others.
I hope nobody is going to call this an "experiment. An engaging one, but a trick nonetheless. So Spurlock feels depressed after so many days of McDonald's.
You want me to feel depressed? Tell me that I will be applauded by an audience of alfalfa sprout mavens at Sundance, make a million dollars, and become famous, if only I can truthfully say that I feel depressed. I guarantee you that at the end of a few days I'll be on the brink of tears. As insurance, I can even manage to dig up a girl friend who will testify that although I have erections with the dimensions of Sequoia trees and the tensile strength of titanium, they are somehow, I don't know, just not the same as they used to be.
Sometimes I wish Michael Moore had never made any successful movies. The imitations are beginning to roll in. What next? For what it's worth, I've spent thirty years doing research in the behavioral sciences, and in my opinion this guy not only cooked the books but did a much clumsier job of it than I've ever done. Gives me a warm glow to be able to say that. Feel as if I'd just eaten a raw free-range organic broccoli spear.
Spurred on by a lawsuit against the McDonald's restaurant chain by two overweight teenage girls, Morgan Spurlock, a healthy documentarian based in New York City, decides to go on a junk food eating binge. He eats breakfast, lunch and dinner at Mickey D's for 30 consecutive days to prove not only how unhealthy the food is, but how unhealthy our collective eating habits are. Spurlock targets not only McDonald's in his self-assigned task, but also the food suppliers for America's elementary and high schools, most of whom are drowning today's youth in sugar and high cholesterol.
Two-thirds of the way through his experiment, Spurlock's own cholesterol has skyrocketed, his weight is up substantially, and his liver is on the brink of malfunctioning. Frequently using TV commercials without their soundtracks and animation to underline his points, he intentionally and crassly becomes a purveyor of shock value which is where the footage from a gastric bypass comes in.
Spurlock himself is an easy-going presence, the perfect Everyman to host this film, but what are his motives? Is he really concerned about the health habits of our population? The many faceless shots of men and women wandering around town with big bottoms and flabby tummies are not shown to be benefiting from any of Spurlock's overall denunciations they're just visual targets and the segues to the medical personnel don't do much to spike the proceedings the doctors seem as worried about Spurlock as Spurlock is about the rest of us.
In the end, the film is a skin-deep examination of a worrisome issue. For their part, McDonald's comes off not as a cause or effect, but as a middlemen: a high-fat supplier we welcome readily into our lives. Personally, I prefer Del Taco. Makes you think real hard about that next "fast food" meal. TxMike 9 May Morgan Spurlock directs and stars in "Super Size Me", taking his life into his own hands for 30 days to see what can happen if you take "fast food" to the extreme.
I was impressed by a couple of things. First, he did it right, getting several physicians in different specialties to examine him before and, at several stages, during his "experiment. And second, he presents a very balanced viewpoint. He does not say everyone who eats fast food will suffer from it. He states that his eating nothing but McDonald's foods and drinks for 30 days is an extreme.
But he did find a man who eats almost nothing but Big Macs. And he found people, including students, who were very regular patrons of fast food joints. As would be expected, he gained about 24 pounds in the 30 days, and his blood-work went from just about "perfect" to what one physician termed "toxic. In addition to the measured effects, he also reported "feeling bad", but after a time just grabbing some fast food made him feel better, almost as if he were addicted to it.
I am fortunate. I very rarely eat fast food, except when on trips. I limit my intake of fats and sugars, and exercise regularly. But this nutrition is a real health issue, and now all over the world since fast food joints like McDonalds are all over the world.
The biggest problem may be with the children who are growing up on fast food, because their parents are too busy to prepare healthy meals. I am glad Spurlock made this film. I think it has had an impact already. As Morgan Spurlock announces it in the first minutes of his documentary film about the thumping phenomenon of the fast-food industry: "everthing is getting fat in the United States: firms, lands, fast-food restaurants, portions of the menus they offer and even it's sad to say millions of American people.
To test the perils of bad diet, Morgan Spurlock decides to have all his meals at McDonalds' for one month to show us how dangerous it really is. At a pinch, his experience is useless because one is virtually sure of the disastrous issue from a physical standpoint.
That's not all, under our eyes, Morgan mentally, morally and even sexually wanes. And the junk food he eats has effects similar to drugs. As soon as he ate his menu, he feels overjoyed and later depression overwhelms him. Without mentioning an increasing addiction. The risky experience Morgan Spurlock goes through is a kind of a leading thread to an investigation during which he raises the problem of the proliferation of fast-foods. Reproducing the methods of the Michael Moore stable: the director goes in many fast-food restaurants and places dealing with the dangers of a bad, dangerous diet, interviews many passers-by in the street or people in high places, Morgan Spurlock points his finger on the irresponsibility of the food industry who is obsessed with profit and neglects good eating habits.
Towards the end of the film, Spurlock tries to get through on the telephone to an important member of the McDonalds firm but can't manage to do so. It paves the way to the conditioning of children at an early age with the unhealthy food they're given for their lunches at school and later adverts about McDonalds seen on TV, the latest menus offered to customers that become increasingly fat the menus but also the efforts made by overweight people who try to lose weight through different means. All this is shot in a hard-hitting way and without too many didactic methods.
Spurlock didn't put aside black humor too: "one can find McDonalds everywhere. In the streets, malls, airports and even hospitals. You understood well. You'll be on the spot in the case of an infarction".
At one point, Spurlock interviews a French woman in the street who think that overweight people who try to sue fast-foods because they deem them responsible for their obesity is a silly idea. That's also my opinion and it is common to many French people. In a way, the fast food industry encourages people to behave in an irresponsible way.
At the end of his project, the director calls upon our responsibility and good sense. Either you continue to go regularly, even daily to eat in fast-foods. Either, you'd better stop or at least to put a brake on your junk food consumption.
And it is a thoughtful way to end a heartfelt assessment about a major problem in the United States but also in Western Europe. One to muse on. One learns at the end of the documentary that the "super size" menu was definitely removed from the list of dishes available at McDonalds. The film didn't really help to this action but it is a promising step. So, who's hungry? Quinoa 27 December Morgan Spurlock, a filmmaker, took on a funny, though definitely audacious task- start out relatively healthy, and then plunge into a three course meal-a-day plan for a month at the quintessential fast-food restaurant on the planet.
As one who was a slave to McDonald's quick fix of burgers and fries and so on and got out of it, thank goodness, though I haven't let go as much as slowed down , I found the documentary on not just McDonalds but health in America to be enlightening, if not a great look at it.
Nothing about the film has me ranking it as one of the best in the genre, however it did go over my expectations. I thought when it first came out in theaters, 'what would be the point of doing this, as I know that McDonald's is the nutritional equivalent of watching wrestling from the WWE?
Inter-cutting between the separate days Morgan goes through quarter pounders and Big Macs sometimes getting sick in the process , he interviews kids in schools some of which know Ronald McDonald and don't know Jesus , nutritionists, a lawyer responsible for representing the kids in the lawsuit against McDonalds, and one particular "Big Mac Guru", one of a few laugh-out loud parts of the film.
Soon I knew where the film was headed, and like a Moore film, the angle was assuredly biased. But then again, I'm not sure I would like, or at least respect, the film if it was hypocritical of its message. By the climax, Spurlock hits his points across, and it's done in a well-presented serio-comic way - it gets your mind thinking about the way you eat, whether or not you're healthy if you do, it may be preaching to the choir , but is also entertaining with animation bits thrown in with the hard facts.
By the way, if you do seek this film out on DVD, whether or not you have already seen it, the special feature called "The Smoking Fry" is near priceless. Morgan Spurlock directs, writes and stars in this documentary feature that takes a stark look at obesity and the evils of fast foods.
Spurlock pledges to eat three meals a day at McDonald's for one month. His plan is to eat every item on the menu at least once Spurlock and his team of doctors and advisers keep records of the physical and psychological repercussions of this dietary disaster. It was not even a week before Spurlock began to feel ill The once moderately healthy filmmaker rapidly becomes more lethargic and depressed His girlfriend Alexandra is a vegan chef and constantly urges him to abort this unhealthy regime.
Spurlock manages to complete his eating experiment One viewing will suffice and eating at McDonald's will make you think twice. Starve out obesity. Hard hitting documentary exposing the fact that eating excessive amounts of fast food is actually bad for you.
Greasy tedg 31 May Spoilers herein. I'm not sure I have a good handle on the difference between documentaries and performance art. It is blurred enough whenever Michael Moore or Ken Burns take control.
Here, the situation is even more confusing. I think that is the intent and why this little thing has appeal. The documentary half of this Frankenstein concerns the international epidemic of obesity that is overwhelming the industrialized world.
The numbers and images are memorable enough to form the basis of an essay. The complexity of this half evaporates when it is reduced to a matter of blame, as is always the case the reduction to blame and the unworthiness of the result. Pictures of chunky kids notwithstanding, there are some interesting fundamental problems here revolving around whether we are capable as a society of making decisions; whether 'freedom' doesn't, even can't work.
But the other half of this is performance art. His doctors raise the alarm. Will he abandon the project, his mother begs. His girlfriend testifies that she can tell that McErections aren't as good. All this is amusing enough to occupy your time, I suppose, if you don't have much of a life. The problem is that the latter half masquerades as the first. Unhappily, we cannot tell the difference, and the reason is the real scandal: political 'education' and talk radio has taught us that anecdote and metaphor are reasonable substitute for the real thing.
So one leaves the theater feeling that just like McDonalds brands its product with a clown, so has this film branded the case against McDonalds with a clown.
Same same. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements. Theo Robertson 2 May Right from the opening scenes of Spurlock's documentary I was impressed by his style , he does engage the audience without resorting to polemical opinion disguised as fact and for that we should be thankful.
Spurlock decides to find out why Americans are becoming obese by living on nothing but a menu from a certain fast food chain So far so good , but is he missing a point I wonder? American fast food chains are notorious for serving processed food with an incredible high fat high sugar content which probably won't do you any good health wise.
But they also serve food in very large portions which is also very good value for money. Think about it for a moment - You go into a fast food chain with a couple of dollars and have a meal high in fat and sugar but the meal itself is relatively cheap. Would you rather spend 50 dollars getting a single meal in an expensive restaurant and leave the table still wanting? I think most people visit a fast food chain to kill the hunger pangs and still have enough money to pay the bills.
Watching Spurlock vomit because he's eaten too much is a kind of back handed compliment to a certain food chain for selling extra large portions Unlike Moore Spurlock doesn't appear to have an axe to grind and does try to be objective. He makes the point that the high rise in obesity may be down to the fact that many American states don't have a compulsory sports syllabus in schools. Certainly this doesn't help to keep children in good health but he then points out another fact that one of the few states that does have compulsory school sports - Illinois - has the third highest rate for childhood obesity in America.
Cause and effect? Meanwhile, Tom actually did eat McDonald's every day, and only did mild exercise he walked a couple miles a day , he lost weight, and his cholesterol level improved, and his blood sugar rates were improved. Member since: Jun. Member Level 08 Blank Slate. Cool story. Also, cholesterol is good for you. Fuck me if I knew that. Member since: Dec. Member Level 03 Artist. And STDs. Member since: Sep. Member Level 22 Writer. When this post hits 88 mph, you're going to see some serious friendship.
The OP is obviously more knowledgeable about this subject. Member since: Aug. Member Level 60 Gamer. Please subscribe "As the old saying goes Member Level 05 Game Developer. Supporter Level 26 Melancholy.
McDonald's is plastic garbage. Don't even. Member since: Jul. Member Level 02 Artist. Less-than-partly correct, your body needs a bit of HDL-type cholesterol. Your body needs carbs.
It's essentially basic energy. Member since: Jan. Member Level 04 Gamer. Well there's a big difference between ordering a salad and a large Big Mac. Member since: May. Member Level 01 Blank Slate. If watching the whole documentary seems daunting, then watch these two clips from it, which basically explain the problem: One , Two.
HDL isn't cholesterol. It's a protein that moves cholesterol around. He eats Big Macs and McBiscuits. I don't think he eats any salads during the entire month.
Member Level 20 Artist. Be VG's Follower. Supporter Level 31 Writer. Nice bit on the VLDL, now that's something one would hope to have less of. It had some relevance to your post and is interesting to know, the more you know. It's good that someone's willing to expose Spurlock for the lying shit that he is. I looked it up and it seemed pretty well received. I'll check it out when I have time. I'm going to work off some carbohydrates. Good fat is the kind you find in vegetable oil, legumes, nuts.
But really all nutritional advice from experts until now has been total bullshit. I don't really know much about saturated fat Saturated fats are natural. Member Level 32 Blank Slate.
This, this, this, this, this. Naughton "suggests that Spurlock's calorie and fat counts don't add up" and criticizes Spurlock's refusal to publish the Super Size Me food log; The Houston Chronicle reports: "Unlike Spurlock, Naughton has a page on his Web site that lists every item including nutritional information he ate during his fast-food month.
While McDonald's denied and downplayed much of the impact of the film and Spurlock's assertions, changes occurred at the restaurant level that appeared to be a response. Within several months of this film's release, the "supersize" option was removed from the menu.
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Potentially edible! Food woo.
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