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Super Size Me
Film Review: Super Sizing America
By Ryan J. Bird
Published: Dec. 13, 2011
The title “Super Size Me” brings to my mind thoughts
of juicy, delicious hamburgers, a mound of french fries, and
half liter of Coke, as it may to many others who hear that
title. The documentary directed and produced by Morgan
Spurlock gives a whole new meaning to the term “super size
me.” Spurlock has the theory that fast food is one cause for
the ever growing epidemic of obesity in America. So he
decides that he is going to prove this theory by eating nothing but McDonald’s food for
30 days. Embarking on this challenge Spurlock obtains the assistance of three doctors,
a nutritionist, and a sports physiologist to track his health while on his “Mcdiet.”
In this documentary Spurlock, a healthy, active, fit New Yorker in his 30's sets out
to prove a point. He not only attempts to prove his point by giving statistics, facts, and
the opinions of others, but he goes to what some would consider extreme by putting his
own body at risk. He wants to make sure Americans know what affects a fast food diet
can have on someone. During the course of his month long experiment Spurlock can
eat nothing but McDonald’s food, that means breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 30 days.
One of the rules that he sets is that he has to super size his meal when ever asked,
hence the title “Super Size Me.” But will the meals be the only thing super sized or at
the end of the experiment will we see that Spurlock has been literally super sized? I
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guess the question Spurlock is trying to answer here is if McDonald’s, or any fast food,
is making American's fat?
The idea for “Super Size Me” seems to have come from the lawsuit that two
obese teenage girls filed against McDonald's. The lawyer of the two girls said that it was
eating McDonald’s food since their childhood that made these teenagers fat, therefore it
is the fault of the McDonald's Corporation for these teenagers obesity. The documentary
consists of giving a lot of statistics and interviewing many different professionals. In fact
Spurlock even interviews Samuel Hirsch the attorney that represented those two obese
girls, as well as John F. Banzhaf, the well know law professor who advices lawyers in
these particular cases. Spurlock even goes to the extent of interviewing grade school
lunch cooks and physical education teachers to get their opinions on the rising epidemic
of obesity in the youth.
Throughout the film Spurlock gives many interesting statistics, for example,
Spurlock said “since 1980 the total number of overweight and obese Americans has
doubled.” The use of these statistics early on in the film draws you into the
documentary, these stats are what make the documentary good. All the statistics are
very startling and attention grabbing which makes one hungry to know more.
What really made Spurlock's statistics, interviews, and information more reliable
was the problems that he went through while undergoing his “Mcdiet.” The medical test
results showed Spurlock's cholesterol, blood glucose, and triglycerides levels had raised
significantly throughout the experiment. This evidence provides physical evidence of the
affects of his diet. The “Mcdiet” took a extremely negative affect on Spurlock's body. I
myself was surprised what this “Mcdiet” was doing to his body, at first it wasn't
something that you would think would happen. Even the three doctors that he sought
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medical advice from were shocked. Before the experiment started the doctors said that
they didn't expect any adverse side affects from the high fat “Mcdiet” Spurlock was
about to undergo. The worst thing they expected is that his triglyceride and cholesterol
levels would rise. They never imagined that this “Mcdiet” would play such a big role in
deteriorating Spurlock's body. And honestly most people don’t believe that a high fat diet
would affect you in that way. From what I have experienced the general idea of most
people is that fast food makes you fat, but fast food would rarely be thought of as
something that would cause sickness or disease.
This documentary was very biased, it seemed like you had to be either against
McDonald’s (fast food) or for it. One of Spurlock's closing statements in the movie
implies that we should “kill McDonald’s before it ends up killing us.” That statement just
shows how biased Spurlock was while doing this experiment, he is obviously against
McDonald’s. That is the biggest weakness in the documentary, it is too biased. I'm not
saying that Spurlock was dishonest in doing his experiment but he may have overexaggerated some of the symptoms he complained about like headaches,
stomachaches, depression, addiction to the food, chest pressure, etc. Some of those
things may have been true, but personally I feel Spurlock exaggerated those things to
mislead viewers.
When formulating an overall opinion of this movie the strengths are far more
important to look at than the weaknesses. I believe that it is much more important to
base your opinion on something that cannot be biased nor tampered with. The evidence
in the medical results just shows that fast food if eaten excessively can cause obesity.
Spurlock ended up gaining a total of 25 pounds. The levels from his blood tests raised
significantly and some were dangerously high. There were some symptoms Spurlock
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said was caused by his “Mcdiet” and although these things really cannot be proven it
was still very entertaining to see him go through it. As for being a valid source to the
question if fast food can cause obesity, I say the answer is yes. This is what happened
with Spurlock and I’m sure that if anyone else ate like he did they would too be at risk of
obesity. The more important thing to look at is what the “Mcdiet” did to his body in
general. There was one point where his general practitioner Dr. Daryl M. Isaacs said
that if he continued this diet he could very well pickle his liver. Its amazing what a high
fat diet can do and Spurlock's experiment shows just that.
It's interesting that in deciding to do this experiment Spurlock went after the
biggest fast food corporation in America, McDonald’s. I mean, why not, if your going to
prove the food that fast food franchises are selling is unhealthy you might as well go for
the big shots. Watching Spurlock make himself sick on his “Mcdiet” was amusing and
was very eye opening. How often do we think about these things? When we are
ordering our meal at McDonald's do we really think what affect that food is going to take
on our body. Well maybe after watching Spurlock's documentary we will all reconsider
the next time we are asked “Would you like to super size your meal today?” Or maybe
even consider eating fast food less often altogether.
Works Cited
Super Size Me. Dir. Morgan Spurlock. Prod. Morgan Spurlock. The Con. 2004. Film.
Scott, A. O.. “When All Those Big Macs Bite Back.” Rev. of Super Size Me, by Morgan
Spurlock. New York Times 7 May. 2004: New York ed.: Print.
Huggo, Sujit R. Varma, Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Monkeykingma.“ Plot Summary for
Super Size Me.” Rev. of Super Size Me, by Morgan Spurlock. The Internet Movie Database.
IMDb.com. Web. 25 Oct. 2011.
Tyler, Joshua. “Movie Review Super Size Me.” Rev. of Super Size Me, by Morgan Spurlock.
CinemaBlend.com. Web. 25 Oct. 2011.