Super Size Me | |
---|---|
Directed by | Morgan Spurlock |
Written by | Morgan Spurlock |
Produced by | Morgan Spurlock |
Starring | Morgan Spurlock Alexandra Jamieson |
Cinematography | Scott Ambrozy |
Edited by | Julie "Bob" Lombardi |
Music by | Steve Horowitz |
Production company | The Con |
Distributed by | |
Release date |
|
Running time | 98 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $65,000 [1] [2] |
Box office | $22.2 million [2] |
Super Size Me is a 2004 American documentary film directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker. Spurlock's film follows a 30-day period from February 1 to March 2, 2003, during which he claimed to consume only McDonald's food, although he later disclosed he was also drinking heavy amounts of alcohol. The film documents the drastic change on Spurlock's physical and psychological health and well-being. It also explores the fast food industry's corporate influence, including how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit and gain.
The film prompted widespread debate about public eating habits and has since come under scrutiny for the accuracy of its science and the truthfulness of Spurlock's on-camera claims.
Spurlock ate at McDonald's restaurants three times a day, consuming every item on the chain's menu at least once. Spurlock claimed to have consumed an average of 20.9 megajoules or 5,000 kcal (the equivalent of 9.26 Big Macs) per day during the experiment. He also walked about 2 kilometers (1.5 miles) a day. An intake of around 2,500 kcal within a healthy balanced diet is more generally recommended for a man to maintain his weight. [3] At the end of the experiment the then-32-year-old Spurlock had gained 24.5 pounds (11.1 kg), a 13% body mass increase, increased his cholesterol to 230 mg/dL (6.0 mmol/L), and experienced mood swings, sexual dysfunction, and fat accumulation in his liver.
The reason for Spurlock's investigation was the increasing spread of obesity throughout US society, which the Surgeon General has declared an "epidemic", and the corresponding lawsuit brought against McDonald's on behalf of two overweight girls, who, it was alleged, became obese as a result of eating McDonald's food (Pelman v. McDonald's Corp., 237 F. Supp. 2d 512). [4] Spurlock argued that, although the lawsuit against McDonald's failed (and subsequently many state legislatures have legislated against product liability actions against producers and distributors of "fast food"), as well as the McLibel case, [5] [6] much of the same criticism leveled against the tobacco companies applies to fast food franchises whose product is both physiologically addictive and physically harmful. [7] [8]
The documentary was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature [9] and won Best Documentary Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America. [10] A comic book related to the movie has been made with Dark Horse Comics as the publisher containing stories based on numerous cases of fast food health scares. [11]
Spurlock released a sequel, Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! , in 2017. [12]
As the film begins, Spurlock is in above-average physical shape, according to his personal trainer. He is seen by three physicians (cardiologist Stephen Siegel, gastroenterologist/hepatologist Daryl Isaacs, and general practitioner Lisa Ganjhu), as well as a nutritionist and a personal trainer. All of the health professionals predict the "McDiet" will have unwelcome effects on his body, but none expect anything too drastic, as his cardiologist Dr. Stephen Siegel cites the human body as being "extremely adaptable". Prior to the experiment, Spurlock ate a varied diet but always had vegan evening meals to accommodate his girlfriend, Alexandra, a vegan chef. At the beginning of the experiment, Spurlock, who stood 6 feet 2 inches (188 cm) tall, had a body weight of 185 pounds (84 kg).
Spurlock followed specific rules governing his eating habits:
On February 1, Spurlock starts the month with breakfast near his home in Manhattan, where there is an average of four McDonald's locations (and 66,950 residents, with twice as many commuters) per square mile (2.6 km²). He aims to keep the distances he walks in line with the 5,000 steps (approximately two miles) walked per day by the average American.
Day 2 brings Spurlock's first (of nine) Super Size meals, at the McDonald's on 34th Street and Tenth Avenue, which comprises a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, Super Size French fries, and a 42-ounce Coca-Cola, which took him 22 minutes to eat. He experiences steadily increasing stomach discomfort during the process, and then finally vomits in the McDonald's parking lot.
After five days, Spurlock has gained 9.5 pounds (4.3 kg) (from 185.5 to about 195 pounds). It is not long before he finds himself experiencing depression, and he claims that his bouts of it, along with lethargy and headaches, could be relieved by eating a McDonald's meal. His general practitioner, Dr. Lisa Ganjhu, describes him as being "addicted". At his second weigh-in he had gained another 8 pounds (3.6 kg), putting his weight at 203.5 pounds (92.3 kg). By the end of the month he weighs about 210 pounds (95 kg), an increase of about 24.5 pounds (about 11 kg). Because he could eat only McDonald's food for a month, Spurlock refused to take any medication at all. At one weigh-in, Spurlock had lost 1 lb. from the previous weigh-in, and a nutritionist hypothesized that he had lost muscle mass, which weighs more than an identical volume of fat. At another weigh-in a nutritionist said Spurlock had gained 17 pounds (7.7 kg) in 12 days.
Spurlock's then-girlfriend, Alexandra Jamieson, attests to the fact that Spurlock lost much of his energy and sex drive during his experiment. It was not clear at the time whether or not Spurlock would be able to complete the entire month of the high-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, and family and friends began to express concern.
On Day 21, Spurlock has heart palpitations and has liver damage. His internist, Dr. Daryl Isaacs, advises him to stop what he is doing immediately to avoid any serious health problems. He compares Spurlock with the protagonist played by Nicolas Cage in the movie Leaving Las Vegas , who intentionally drinks himself to death in a matter of weeks. Despite this warning Spurlock decides to continue the experiment.
On March 2, Spurlock makes it to day 30 and achieves his goal. In thirty days he has "Supersized" his meals nine times along the way (five of which were in Texas, four in New York City). His physicians are surprised at the degree of deterioration in Spurlock's health. He notes that he has eaten as many McDonald's meals as most nutritionists say the ordinary person should eat in eight years. (He ate 90 meals, which is close to the number of meals consumed once a month in an eight-year period.)
This section needs additional citations for verification .(January 2014) |
The documentary's end text states that it took Spurlock five months to lose 20.1 pounds (9.1 kg) and another nine months to lose the last 4.5 pounds (2.0 kg). His then-girlfriend Alex, now his ex-wife, began supervising his recovery with a vegan "detox diet", which became the basis for her book The Great American Detox Diet. [15] [ better source needed ]
The movie ends with a rhetorical question, "Who do you want to see go first, you or them?" This is accompanied by a cartoon tombstone, which reads "Ronald McDonald (1954–2012)", which originally appeared in The Economist in an article addressing the ethics of marketing to children. [14]
A short epilogue showed that the salads can contain even more calories than burgers if the customer adds liberal amounts of cheese and dressing before consumption. It also described McDonald's discontinuation of the Super Size option six weeks after the movie's premiere, as well as its recent emphasis on healthier menu items such as salads, and the release of the new adult Happy Meal. McDonald's denied that these changes had anything to do with the film. [16]
Super Size Me premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, where Morgan Spurlock won the Grand Jury Prize for directing the film. [17] The film opened in the US on May 7, 2004, and grossed a total of $11,536,423 worldwide, making it the 7th highest-grossing documentary film of all time. [18] It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, but lost to the film Born into Brothels. It did, however, win the award for Best Documentary Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America. [10]
The film received overall positive reviews from critics and audiences. It holds a 92% rating on the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 171 reviews, with an average rating of 7.73/10. The consensus calls the film an "entertaining doc about the adverse effects of eating fast food." [19] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 37 critics. [20]
Super Size Me received two thumbs up on At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper . Caroline Westbrook for BBC News stated that the hype for the documentary was proper "to a certain extent", because of its serious message, and that, overall, the film's "high comedy factor and over-familiarity of the subject matter render it less powerful than other recent documentaries – but it still makes for enjoyable, thought-provoking viewing." [21] One reviewer said "he's telling us something everyone already knows: Fast food is bad for you." [22]
Robert Davis of Paste said the film accomplished some of its goals and addressed an important topic, but, at the same time, sometimes looked more like a publicity stunt than a documentary. He primarily criticized the dramatic and unscientific approach of Super Size Me, saying Spurlock unnecessarily ate more than he had to and ignored his nutritionist's advice. Davis explained he would have been more interested had the documentary been about trying to eat as healthy as possible at McDonald's: "You could choose low-fat options, but it would be impossible to get enough vegetables and fiber, and the low-fat meal would be incredibly bland, the product of a system that has worked to optimize food delivery and consistency and, in doing so, has invented foods so devoid of flavor that they require dressings, oils, beef tallow and goopy coatings to make them more than just textured blobs. The industry has worked hard to convince consumers that these odd, sweet flavors are not only good but also unique, recognizable parts of a brand. Spurlock doesn't attempt to convey this message, presumably because the affects[ sic ] of too few vegetables and too little fiber aren't as dramatic as speedy weight-and-cholesterol gains." [23]
McDonald's UK responded that the author intentionally consumed an average of 5,000 calories per day and did not exercise, and that the results would have been the same regardless of the source of overeating. [24]
In his reply documentary Fat Head , Tom Naughton "suggests that Spurlock's calorie and fat counts don't add up" and noted 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." [25]
After eating exclusively at McDonald's for one month, Soso Whaley said, "The first time I did the diet in April 2004, I lost 10 pounds (going from 175 to 165) and lowered my cholesterol from 237 to 197, a drop of 40 points." Of particular note was that she exercised regularly and did not insist on consuming more food than she otherwise would. Despite eating at only McDonald's every day, she maintained her caloric intake at around 2,000 per day. [26]
After John Cisna, a high school science teacher, lost 60 pounds while eating exclusively at McDonald's for 180 days, he said, "I'm not pushing McDonald's. I'm not pushing fast food. I'm pushing taking accountability and making the right choice for you individually... As a science teacher, I would never show Super Size Me because when I watched that, I never saw the educational value in that... I mean, a guy eats uncontrollable amounts of food, stops exercising, and the whole world is surprised he puts on weight? What I'm not proud about is probably 70 to 80 percent of my colleagues across the United States still show Super Size Me in their health class or their biology class. I don't get it." [27]
As a counterpoint, the film features interviews with Big Mac aficionado Don Gorske, who eats multiple Big Macs each day, yet maintains healthy weight and cholesterol levels, as well as good mental health.
A 2006 study on fast food consumption by healthy individuals inspired by the documentary showed that, while the heavy diet does affect liver enzymes, it did not show the same dangerous effect shown in the documentary. This suggested that the extreme reaction must have had another cause, [28] [29] and in 2017, Spurlock–who previously told his doctors he did not drink–admitted to copious amounts of alcohol consumption during the making of the film, which some critics, such as documentary filmmaker Phelim McAleer, have argued may better account for his liver issues and other health problems, since he had only changed his diet and not his alcohol intake during the experiment. [30]
Six weeks after the film's debut, McDonald's discontinued its supersize portions, although they claimed the decision had nothing to do with the film itself. [31] In the United Kingdom, McDonald's publicized a website which included a response to and criticisms of the film. [32] In theaters in the UK, the company placed a brief ad in the film's trailers, pointing to the URL and stating, "See what we disagree with. See what we agree with."
Internationally, Super Size Me was a major success in the box office of Australia. [33] McDonald's in Australia responded with an advertising campaign that included three elements: two advertisements for TV and one produced to be shown in movie theaters. [33]
The film was the inspiration for the BBC television series The Supersizers... in which the presenters dine on historical meals and take medical tests to ascertain the impact on their health. [34]
The film was also the inspiration for the 2007 documentary film Super High Me , directed by Michael Blieden. The film follows Doug Benson, a comedian and cannabis enthusiast, as he becomes the subject to a multitude of tests designed to measure the physical and mental impacts of, first, not smoking cannabis for 30 days, and then smoking non-stop for 30 days. The poster for the movie was modeled after one of the promotional posters from Super Size Me.
The premise of the 2011 documentary Forks Over Knives was to create the "reverse" of Super Size Me, where the film's director "goes on this diet and gets better, instead of getting fatter and sicker". [35]
Dieting is the practice of eating food in a regulated way to decrease, maintain, or increase body weight, or to prevent and treat diseases such as diabetes and obesity. As weight loss depends on calorie intake, different kinds of calorie-reduced diets, such as those emphasising particular macronutrients, have been shown to be no more effective than one another. As weight regain is common, diet success is best predicted by long-term adherence. Regardless, the outcome of a diet can vary widely depending on the individual.
A fad diet is a diet that is popular, generally only for a short time, similar to fads in fashion, without being a standard scientific dietary recommendation, and often making unreasonable claims for fast weight loss or health improvements; as such it is often considered a type of pseudoscientific diet. Fad diets are usually not supported by clinical research and their health recommendations are not peer-reviewed, thus they often make unsubstantiated statements about health and disease.
Morgan Valentine Spurlock was an American documentary filmmaker, writer, and television producer. He directed 23 films and was the producer of nearly 70 films throughout his career. Spurlock received acclaim for directing the documentary Super Size Me (2004), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film. He produced What Would Jesus Buy? (2007) and directed Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? (2008), POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011), Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope (2011), and One Direction: This Is Us (2013).
Chicken McNuggets are a type of chicken nuggets sold by the international fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. They consist of small pieces of reconstituted boneless chicken meat that have been battered and deep fried. Chicken McNuggets were conceived by Keystone Foods in the late 1970s and introduced in select markets in 1981. The nuggets were made available worldwide by 1983 after correcting a supply issue. The formula was changed in 2016 to remove artificial preservatives and improve the nutritional value.
Don Gorske is an American world record holder known as the "ultimate Big Mac fan," having eaten over 34,128 such hamburgers from the U.S. fast food chain McDonald's in his lifetime, earning him a place in the Guinness Book of Records. A resident of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Gorske claims the Big Mac constitutes 90–95% of his total solid food intake. He is featured in the documentaries Super Size Me (2004) and Don Gorske: Mac Daddy (2005), and is the author of 22,477 Big Macs (2008).
Body for Life (BFL) is a 12-week nutrition and exercise program, and also an annual physique transformation competition. The program utilizes a low-fat high-protein diet. It was created by Bill Phillips, a former competitive bodybuilder and previous owner of EAS, a manufacturer of nutritional supplements. It has been popularized by a bestselling book of the same name.
Supersize means "larger than average or standard sizes; extremely large". The phrase was particularly used by McDonald's restaurants to upsize their French fries and soft drinks to an extra-large size. In the United States, McDonald's introduced the supersized option in the summer of 1987.
The Western pattern diet is a modern dietary pattern that is generally characterized by high intakes of pre-packaged foods, refined grains, red meat, processed meat, high-sugar drinks, candy and sweets, fried foods, industrially produced animal products, butter and other high-fat dairy products, eggs, potatoes, corn, and low intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, pasture-raised animal products, fish, nuts, and seeds.
Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America is a 2005 book by Morgan Spurlock.
The Shangri-La Diet is both the name of a book by the psychologist Seth Roberts, a professor at Tsinghua University and professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, and the name of the diet that the book advocates. The book discusses consuming 100–400 calories per day in a flavorless food such as extra-light olive oil or canola oil one hour outside of mealtimes as a method of appetite suppression leading to weight loss.
Weight management refers to behaviors, techniques, and physiological processes that contribute to a person's ability to attain and maintain a healthy weight. Most weight management techniques encompass long-term lifestyle strategies that promote healthy eating and daily physical activity. Moreover, weight management involves developing meaningful ways to track weight over time and to identify the ideal body weights for different individuals.
Donna Simpson is a woman who in 2008 expressed a "desire" to become one of the world's heaviest women, in competition with Susanne Eman. She wished to attain a target weight of 800 pounds (360 kg). As of June 2010, Simpson weighed 602 pounds (273 kg), down from her weight of 630 pounds (290 kg) in 2008. Simpson maintained a website where fans paid to watch her eat. In 2010, she won the Guinness World Records for the "Heaviest woman to give birth".
Fat Head is a 2009 American documentary film directed by and starring comedian Tom Naughton. The film seeks to refute both the documentary Super Size Me and the lipid hypothesis, a theory of nutrition started in the early 1950s in the United States by Ancel Keys and promoted in much of the Western world.
Criticism of fast food includes claims of negative health effects, animal cruelty, cases of worker exploitation, children-targeted marketing and claims of cultural degradation via shifts in people's eating patterns away from traditional foods. Fast food chains have come under fire from consumer groups, such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a longtime fast food critic over issues such as caloric content, trans fats and portion sizes. Social scientists have highlighted how the prominence of fast food narratives in popular urban legends suggests that modern consumers have an ambivalent relationship with fast food, particularly in relation to children.
"Supersize Me" is the seventh episode of season 8 and 207th episode overall of the American animated television series Beavis and Butt-Head. It aired on MTV on November 17, 2011, along with "Bathroom Break".
Fred Pescatore is a Manhattan-based author and internist who specializes in nutrition. He is best known as the author of the bestselling children's health book Feed Your Kids Well (1998) and The Hamptons Diet (2004).
Joe Cross is an Australian entrepreneur, author, filmmaker, and plant-based diet advocate who promotes juicing. He is most known for his documentary Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead in which he tells the story of his 60-day juice fast. He is the founder and CEO of Reboot with Joe, a health and lifestyle brand.
Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! is a 2017 American documentary film directed by Morgan Spurlock. A sequel to the 2004 film Super Size Me, it explores ways in which the fast food industry has rebranded itself as healthier since his original film through the process of Spurlock working to open his own fast-food restaurant, thus exposing some of the ways in which rebranding is more perception than reality. This was Spurlock's final film before his death in 2024.
Eating You Alive is a 2018 health documentary film about why Americans are suffering from chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, autoimmune disease, among other diseases, and whether the outcome can be changed.