With all of the controversy going on surrounding fast food & how it is apparently leading to the obesity epidemic here in the United States, American independent filmmaker Morgan Spurlock decided to take a further look at it in the 2004 film Super Size Me, a documentary film directed by & starring Spurlock himself. The film takes place over a span of thirty days (approximately from early February to early March), where Spurlock himself eats nothing but McDonald’s food everyday.
Before starting his “McDonald’s Diet”, Spurlock decides to visit three doctors. All three aren’t too thrilled about the idea & neither is his then-girlfriend (now wife), who is a vegan. Even before going on his “McDiet”, he decides that there are a few rules he must follow:
« He must eat all three meals (breakfast, lunch, & dinner) from McDonald’s
« He must eat every item on the menu at least once
« Everything he eats/drinks must come from McDonald’s
« He can only & must SuperSize when asked
By the end of the thirty days, eating nothing but McDonald’s everyday takes quite the toll on Spurlock’s health.
One aspect of the filmmaking which I have to give credit to Spurlock for is the direction he decided to take this film in. Instead of simply doing research about McDonald’s, he literally decided to make himself not only the director, but the star & test subject as well. He could easily have offered someone else X amount of dollars to be the test subject while he could still have been the director & star, since he had a pretty good idea of what he was getting himself into ahead of time. I respect him for that as he was putting his own health on the line for the sake of his experiment. I also respect him for getting first hand information from doctors as well as giving information on what could happen to people who continue to eat fast food can get like diabetes.
However, having said that, there is also an aspect of the filmmaking which I didn’t like & think could have been done better. While I respect & admire Spurlock for choosing to eat nothing but McDonald’s food everyday, three times a day, for thirty days, I think the experiment was a bit extreme. I realize that Spurlock was trying to get the point across as millions of people eat at McDonald’s everyday, but I think he went a bit overboard. I believe that what he should have done was eat at McDonald’s maybe once a day or once a week. After all, not only do most people not go there every single day & eat every meal there for thirty days, but also the results would have been more realistic. I would have loved to seen him go to the doctor before going to McDonald’s & then after one meal, to see how much of a difference there would have been. Obviously, if you eat nothing but McDonald’s for thirty days, you will gain weight, plain & simple, unless you burn it off, which most of us do not.
My overall recommendation is that I thought this movie was very good. I liked how Spurlock decided to go after McDonald’s & show what can happen to you if you don’t watch what you eat. I found it a bit ironic how McDonald’s discontinued their “Super Size” option after this film came out, even though McDonald’s said that the film had nothing to do with their decision. Right. I also think it’s funny how Spurlock basically turned the image of good old Ronald McDonald & changed him into this evil clown who doesn’t care about your health as long as he gets your money. I would love to see Spurlock do a sequel/spin-off to this film where he eats nothing but Subway sandwiches for thirty days called “Subway Me”. I would love to see that because I am curious if Jared really did lose all that weight by eating nothing but Subway sandwiches. Either the Subway sandwiches are full of fresh & healthy ingredients or Jared is just full of it.