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Super Size Me

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Super Size Me
Theatrical release poster
Directed byMorgan Spurlock
Written byMorgan Spurlock
Produced byMorgan Spurlock
StarringMorgan Spurlock
Alexandra Jamieson
Daryl Isaacs
CinematographyScott Ambrozy
Edited byJulie "Bob" Lombardi
Music byDoug Ray
Steve Horowitz
Michael Parrish
Distributed bySamuel Goldwyn Films
Roadside Attractions
Release date
May 7, 2004
Running time
98 min.
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
BudgetProduction: $65,000[1]
Advertising: $1,000,000[2]
Box office$30,000,000[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 eats only McDonald's food. The film documents this lifestyle's drastic effects on Spurlock's physical and psychological well-being, and explores the fast food industry's corporate influence, including how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit. Spurlock dined at McDonald's restaurants three times per day, eating every item on the chain's menu. He would always choose to "super-size" his meal if he was offered by a McDonald's employee. Spurlock consumed an average of 20.92 megajoules or 5,000 kcal (the equivalent of 9.26 Big Macs) per day during the experiment. As a result, the then-32-year-old Spurlock gained 24½ lbs. (11.1 kg), a 13% body mass increase, a cholesterol level of 230, and experienced mood swings, sexual dysfunction, and fat accumulation to his liver. It took Spurlock fourteen months to lose the weight gained from his experiment.

The reason for Spurlock's investigation was the increasing spread of obesity throughout U.S. society, which the Surgeon General has declared "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].[3] Spurlock points out 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"), much of the same criticism leveled against the tobacco companies applies to fast food franchises whose product is both physiologically addictive and physically harmful.[4][5]

The documentary was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature.[6]

It has been reported that a comic book version of the movie is in the works with Dark Horse as the publisher.[7]

Content

As the film begins, Spurlock is in physically above average shape according to his personal trainer. He is seen by three doctors (a cardiologist, a gastroenterologist, and a general practitioner), 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 expects anything too drastic, one citing the human body as being "extremely adaptable." Prior to the experiment, Spurlock ate a varied diet but always had vegan evening meals to appease his then-girlfriend (now wife), Alexandra, a vegan chef. At the beginning of the experiment, Spurlock, who stands 6 feet 2 inches (188 cm) tall, had a body weight of 185.5 lbs (84 kg).

The Experiment

Spurlock has specific rules governing his eating habits:

  • He must fully eat three McDonald's meals per day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
  • He must complete every item on the McDonald's menu at least once over the course of the 30 days (he managed this in nine days).
  • He must only ingest items that are offered on the McDonald's menu. This includes bottled water. Any and all outside consumption of food is prohibited.
  • He must Super Size the meal when asked, but only when asked. He is not able to Super Size by his own accord.
  • He will attempt to walk about as much as a typical U.S citizen, based on a suggested figure of 5,000 standardized distance steps per day,[8] but he did not closely adhere to this, as he walked more while in New York than Houston.

On February 1, Spurlock starts the month with breakfast near his home in Manhattan, where there are an average of four McDonald's (and 66,950 residents, and 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 Super Size meal, at the McDonald's on 34th Street and Tenth Avenue, which happens to be a meal made of a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, Super Size French fries, and a 42 ounce Coke, which takes 22 minutes to eat. He experiences steadily increasing stomach aches during the process, and promptly vomits in the McDonald's parking lot.

After five days Spurlock has gained 9.5 pounds (4.5 kg) (from 185.5 to about 195 pounds). It is not long before he finds himself with a feeling of depression, and he claims that his bouts of depression, lethargy, and headaches are relieved by a McDonald's meal. His general practitioner describes him as being "addicted." He has soon gained another 8 pounds (3.5 kg), putting his weight at 203.5 lb (92 kg). By the end of the month he weighs about 210 pounds (95.5 kg), an increase of about 24.5 pounds (about 11 kg). Because he could only eat McDonald's food for a month, Spurlock refused to take any medication at all. At one weigh-in Morgan lost 1 lb. from the previous weigh-in, and it was hypothesized by a nutritionist that he had lost muscle mass, which weighs more than an identical volume of fat. At another weigh-in, it was said by a nutritionist that he gained 17 pounds (8.5 kg) in 12 days.

Spurlock's girlfriend, Alexandra Jamieson, attests to the fact that Spurlock has lost much of his energy and sex drive during his experiment. It was not clear at the time if Spurlock would be able to complete the full month of the high-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, and friends and family began to express concern.

In Day 21, Spurlock has heart palpitations. 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 "Supersized" his meals nine times along the way (five of which were in Texas, three in New York City). His doctors 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 8 years (he ate 90 meals, which is close to 8 years of eating it once a month).

Findings

An end text states that it took Spurlock 5 months to lose 20 pounds (9 kg) and another 9 months to lose the last 4.5 pounds. His girlfriend Alexandra, (who has since become his wife), a vegan chef, began supervising his recovery with her "detox diet," which became the basis for her book, The Great American Detox Diet.[9]

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 toward children.[10]

A short epilogue was added to the DVD describing 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. However, it is shown that the salads can contain even more calories than hamburgers, if the customer adds liberal amounts of cheese and dressing prior to consumption. McDonald's claimed that these changes had nothing to do with the film.

Reaction

Super Size Me first premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, where Morgan Spurlock won the Grand Jury Prize for directing the film.[11] The film opened in the U.S. on May 7, 2004, and grossed a total of $20,641,054 worldwide, making it the 12th highest-grossing documentary film of all time.[12] It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary but lost to the film Born into Brothels. "Super Size Me" received two thumbs up on At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper. The film overall received positive reviews from other critics, as well as movie-goers, and holds a 93% "Certified Fresh" rating on the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

Criticism and statistical notes

Critics of the film, including McDonald's, argue 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.[13] He was eating solely McDonald's food in keeping with the terms of a potential judgment against McDonald's in court documents highlighted at the beginning of the film. However, in the comedic documentary reply Fat Head,[14] Tom 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."[15] The film addresses such objections by highlighting that a part of the reason for Spurlock's deteriorating health was not just the high calorie intake but also the high quantity of fat relative to vitamins and minerals in the McDonald's menu, which is similar in that regard to the nutritional content of the menus of most other U.S. fast-food chains.[citation needed]

About 1/3 of Spurlock's calories came from sugar. His nutritionist, Bridget Bennett RD, cited him about his excess intake of sugar from "milkshakes and cokes". It is revealed toward the end of the movie that over the course of the diet, he consumed "over 30 pounds of sugar, and over 12 lbs. of fat from their food."[16] The nutritional side of the diet was not fully explored in the film because of the closure of the clinic which monitored this aspect during the filming of the movie.[citation needed]

Soso Whaley, the owner of Literary Llama Productions (an independent film production company), made a reply[17] film called "Me & Mickey D."[18][19], in which she also ate all meals at McDonald's, yet lost weight -- 20 pounds over 60 days; 30 pounds in 90 days. Some of Whaley's requirements for her meals were the same as Spurlock's (had to eat everything on the menu over the course of the experiment, etc); but some were different (she didn't have to clean the plate -- Spurlock required himself to do so). Whaley also collected documentation in the form of itemized receipts for each meal, which Spurlock did not do. Whaley's results were quite different[20].

Likewise, fitness advocate Chazz Weaver also created a documentary[21] of his own 30-day McDonald's diet in response to Spurlock, and again results were entirely different from Spurlock's. Where Weaver's premise differed from Whaley's, however, was the commitment to exercise. Weaver acknowledged that without exercise, the fat-laden diet he ate at McDonald's would have resulted in a weight gain. The thrust of Weaver's thesis was an exercise plan. His result was weight loss (222 lbs down to 214 lbs), as well as improved blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides.[22]

Spurlock claimed he was trying to imitate what an average diet for a regular eater at McDonald's—a person who would get little to no exercise—would do to them. Spurlock's intake of 5,000 calories per day was well over twice the recommended daily intake for a sedentary adult male, which would amount to only about 2,300 calories.[23] A typical man consuming as many calories as Spurlock did would gain nearly a pound a day (which is roughly how much Spurlock gained), a rate of weight gain that could not be sustained for long periods. Additionally, Spurlock did not demonstrate or claim that anyone, let alone a substantial number of people, eats at McDonald's three times per day. In fact McDonald's is mentioned during the movie to have two classes of users of their restaurants: There are the "Heavy Users" (about 72% of customers, who eat at their restaurants once or twice a week), and the "SUPER Heavy Users" (about 22% of customers, who eat McDonald's three or more times a week).[citation needed]

Impact

In the United Kingdom, McDonald's placed a brief ad in the trailers of showings of the film, pointing to the website www.supersizeme-thedebate.co.uk.[24] The ads stated, "See what we disagree with. See what we agree with."

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.[25]

See also

References

  1. ^ Lee, Christina (2004). "Super Size Me". The Film Journal.
  2. ^ a b The Numbers. "Super Size Me". Nash Information Services.
  3. ^ [1]
  4. ^ Breaking the Food Seduction: The Hidden Reasons Behind Food Cravings and Seven Steps to End Them Naturally by Neal Barnard, M.D., St. Martin’s Press (June 2003)
  5. ^ Laurance, Jeremy (30 January 2003). "Fast food is addictive in same way as drugs, say scientists". London: The Independent.
  6. ^ "NY Times: Super Size Me". NY Times. Retrieved 2008-11-23.
  7. ^ Slaton, Joyce (July 23, 2009). "Coming Soon: Super Size Me, the Comic Book". Chow.com.
  8. ^ Figure supplied by Mark Fenton, former editor Walking Magazine, in scene from the movie'
  9. ^ Jamieson, Alex. "[[The Great American Detox Diet]]". HowToBeFit.com. Retrieved 2007-05-15. {{cite web}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
  10. ^ Spurlock, in audio commentary track
  11. ^ Morgan, Spurlock. Don't Eat This Book. New York: G.P Putnam Sons, 2005. 245. Print.
  12. ^ "Documentary Movies, 1982-Present". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2007-05-15.
  13. ^ McDonald's Press Releases Section - Press Release August, 2004 Page deadlink (Wayback http://web.archive.org/web/20071012135323/http://mcdonalds.co.uk/pages/global/supersize.html)
  14. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1333994/ Fat Head
  15. ^ Ken Hoffman (2008-01-14). "Ordering up some food for thought". Houston Chronicle.
  16. ^ Scenes from movie. About 2000 calories in a lb. of sugar, of nearly 5000 calories consumed per day, accounts for just under 36% percent of his caloric intake
  17. ^ "Transcript: The Mickey D's Diet", by Neil Cavuto, "Your World w/ Neil Cavuto", June 21, 2005. Retrieved 2011-01-13.
  18. ^ "Interrogatory: Soso, So Good: Can woman live on Mickey D’s alone?", by Kathryn Jean Lopez National Review magazine, June 23, 2005. Retrieved 2011-01-13.
  19. ^ "Crushing Mr. Creosote: A month with McDonald’s", by Andrew Stuttaford National Review magazine, April 29, 2004. Retrieved 2011-01-13.
  20. ^ "In Our Opinion: Super Size Me / Down Size Me", , Center for Individual Freedom, July 15, 2004. Retrieved 2011-01-13.
  21. ^ "Downsize Me" video by Chazz Weaver. Retrieved 2011-01-13.
  22. ^ "The McDonald's Diet" Journal by Chazz Weaver. Retrieved 2011-02-23.
  23. ^ Dietary Reference Intakes: Recommended Intakes for Individuals
  24. ^ (archive)
  25. ^ Roberts, Rachel. "Interview: Sue Perkins and Giles Coren - Gluttons for punishment - The Scotsman". Thescotsman.scotsman.com. Retrieved 2009-06-20.
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