Super Size Me (2003)

For my library.

My personal trainer recommended I watch "Super Size Me." I rented it and was so pleased. I knew it had to become part of my library, so I bought it. I look forward to seeing it over and over. There is so much nutritional and health advice in the movie. You can see the exceptional results of healthy school lunches. Consequences, both good and bad, of eating habits are impresively shown over and over. August 16, 2008

Do you want to lose weight? Watch this documentary.

Yes. We all know that McDonald's is bad for us. And yes, this is a little bit like telling smokers that they are killing themselves. We know. That's not really what I like about this movie, even though it does take great pains to dissect the marketing campaigns and food production aspects of McDonald's.

What makes this movie important is the fact that it made me paranoid enough about the food I eat (and I keep kosher so I don't eat at McDonald's anyhow) to lose 20 pounds. I don't mean that I turned anorexic. I mean that I actually counted calories, refrained from greasy food, drank more water and ate fruits and vegetables. Spurlock purposefully ate garbage for a month and gained 24 pounds. I used to do it without thinking about it and then figured that my clothes were shrinking in the wash. It didn't happen in 30 days. It happened over the course of a year but all the things that happened to him happened to me. Chest pains. Lost sex drive. High blood pressure.

Right now I'm still overweight but I'm much healthier than I've been in a long time and I owe it to this movie. July 1, 2008

Everyone should watch

Every parent, teenager, teacher, doctor, etc. should see this one. Yes, we have all heard it before, but not documented to this extent. It is one man's experiment but quite eye-opening. I wish the little bit of bad language and couple of "gross" scenes had been left out, but I have heard there is a family friendly version coming that could also be shown in schools. June 28, 2008

Only slightly entertaining, and worthless as a documentary

Before I saw this "documentary", I wondered "what's the point?" I have been hearing about how bad fast food is for you since I was in grade school (the 1980's), and people have been complaining about McDonalds advertising to children for as long as I can remember. Super Size Me is about 90 minutes of "fast food is bad for you" and "food companies are evil and they sell stuff to children". So to make a long story short, there is mostly nothing new here, other than the creator's "Jackass"-style stunt of eating nothing but McDonalds for 30 days. As a documentary, "Super Size Me" is completely worthless.

The only redeeming quality that this movie has is the low-brow comedy of watching Morgan Spurlock stuff himself until he vomits and bend over backwards to eat nothing but food that is bad for him. (Spurlock's loony vegan girlfriend provides some unintentional comedy, but I refuse to get him credit for that). His stunt has absolutely no educational value, since he never even bothers to drink a diet Coke instead of a regular Coke. He proves that if you purposely set out to gain a lot of weight and destroy your body, you can gain a lot of weight and destroy your body. Does anyone watching this movie really think that anyone out there eats three square meals a day of fast food? Even the fattest people?

Interlaced with short diaries of his horrible 30-day diet are short clips of exploring the American obesity epidemic. They are mostly anecdotal and extremely low on facts. During these clips, he slobbers all over a Left Wing law professor who advises trial lawyers, demonizes Sodexho, and demonizes all American food companies. Has this guy not been to a grocery store in 20 years? The shelves are loaded with diet drinks, low-fat cheese, low-fat hot dogs, low-fat milk, low-fat TV dinners, low-fat chips, low-fat ice cream, low-fat beef -- you name it. Clearly, there is more at work in this epidemic than fattening food, but there is almost no attention given to other factors in this video. He briefly mentions that kids aren't getting enough exercise nowadays, but only spends a few minutes on the topic.

Morgan Spurlock never comes right out and says it, but the message of this movie is "Fast food companies and food manufacturers commit murder and they get away with it because they spend tons of money on advertising and lobbyists". In that way, this film is its own form of political junk food. June 16, 2008

McDiet equals McStroke

McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, Wendy's Burger King, Dairy Queen what do all of these restaurants have in common besides workers being paid minimum wage and offering artery clogging food in large quantities at cheap prices: they have overtaken the food market and supposedly are to blame for making America the fattest country in the world.

Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, after reading about two obese girls suing McDonald's for making them fat, decides to go on a "diet" a McDiet in which he eats McDonald's three times a day and sets up such restrictions as not allowing himself to eat or drink anything not available at McDonalds and only supersizing his meals when the server asks him if he wants to. Before beginning on his expedition, Spurlock has a massive vegetarian meal prepared by his vegan chef girlfriend which will be his lowest calorie meal for the next thirty days. Spurlock, whom rarely ate fast food before the making of the film, laughs at the ridiculous proportions served by McDonald's and the amount of sugar he consumes just in his milkshakes and soft drinks. The first couple of days he is okay, but he begins to get sick soon thereafter and once vomits on camera after eating a supersized meal. As the thirty days pass on by, the viewer gets to see how the food is destroying Spurlock such as in one case it is mentioned that he is destroying his liver like an alcoholic, but with food instead of beer, wine, and liquor. The weight he gains and the damage to his mood the food creates are real eye-openers.

Super Size Me has been criticized by a number of individuals who have stated that Spurlock's diet in the film is unrealistic and that no normal person would consist just on McDonald's for such a long time. However, Spurlock is attempting to consume enough McDonald's food for an eight year equivalent and he even reduces his daily exercise to get in line with the average American some of who do eat junk every day and who with their automobiles and general laziness walk little each day. Spurlock might be going to extremes, but he is showing how a number of Americans are destroying themselves through junk.

One issue that I wish Spurlock addressed is that of who consumes fast food the most. There are of course soccer moms and the like who treat their kids to McDonald's after practice and individuals who just need to grab a quick bite to eat. However, at least in my experience having lived in a small southern town, a good number of people who eat fast food, and especially the dollar meals, are from poor families who honestly cannot afford better foods when they eat out, and sometimes eating out is a must when one has limited time to prepare foods. If one looks at a number of people who eat fast food and compare with their economic level one can see a correlation between obesity and economic status.

A fun, albeit horrifying film, Super Size Me has done a good job trying to make Americans think before consuming fat-laden junk. May 19, 2008

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