Written by Morgan Spurlock
Directed by Morgan Spurlock

One of the first jobs I had in my life was working in a McDonald’s.  I was 18, living in a house with four friends, all of whom also worked there.  At the time, I would say our main source of nutrition came from the restaurant.  If one of us was “lucky” enough to work a closing shift, whoever was there made sure there was extra food at the end of the night and brought it home for the rest of us.  Ah, yes, the good old days.  Honestly, the time I worked at McDonald’s was the time in my life when I had the least amount of problems with my weight.

I approached the film Super Size Me with a bit of skepticism.  After giving the viewer a litany of statistics, Morgan Spurlock proposes to eat nothing but McDonald’s food for thirty days.  The parameters are that he must eat three meals a day, must eat everything on the menu at least once, and if the suggestive sell of asking the patron if they want to super size their meal is presented, he must take them up on it.  Before his experiment, Spurlock visits several doctors, including a cardiologist and a gastroenterologist.  His cholesterol is 168 before and triglycerides are 43.  His weight is 185.  He is in excellent health.

It might sound like Spurlock has a vendetta against the fast food giant.  He doesn’t.  He’s a typical American who enjoys his fast food now and then but doesn’t make a really huge habit out of it.  

The experiment is interesting.  It’s as anecdotal as my own experience in this realm.  We were limited to a certain amount of food for our meal while we worked, plus all the free soda we could down, and whatever was left that we could help ourselves to at the end of the day.  It was also in the time before the Super Size was an option.  Spurlock shows us in living color what it’s like as his body transforms over 30 days.  All of the doctors at one point or another tell him to stop and that he’s doing irreparable harm to his body.

Along the way, Spurlock talks to people on the streets of New York about fast food and about the lawsuit that was filed against McDonald’s by two teenagers for allegedly contributing to their weight problems.  Spurlock tries to draw a parallel between those who smoke and those who are obese.  I am sorry, but there is a point of personal responsibility.  Even having been subject to a diet consisting mainly of McDonald’s for a period of my life, there’s no way I would think it was healthy for anyone to eat just McDonald’s day in and day out, especially If there are noticeable effects on the body such as weight gain and feeling ill.

Spurlock doesn’t just stick to fast food but challenges the school lunch programs.  It’s not just the lunch programs that are farmed out to private corporations, but lunch programs that receive their food from the USDA.  All are equally guilty of giving kids options that are primarily sugary drinks, fried foods, snacks, cookies, and candy.  This ties in with how McDonald’s markets to children with the Ronald McDonald clown as well as the play places to keep kids wanting to come back.  Again, I don’t see the parallels.  Children are a captive market, so to speak, in the schools.  They have a choice to brown bag it or eat the allegedly healthy hot lunches the schools offer.  Parents have a choice as to whether or not to bring their children to McDonald’s, especially every day or week.  If parents have lost so much of their backbone that they cannot say “no” to their children in the face of creative and persuasive marketing, then they should be sterilized.

I loved watching Spurlock argue with his girlfriend who is a vegan.  I would never be one and most of the vegans I’ve come across I can’t stand because they are like she is in trying to force the way they are choosing to live on everyone else.  His experiment repulses her on every level and I found it to be some fun moments in the film.  There was also a man who was terribly skinny and ate at least one Big Mac a day.  He rarely ate the fries or anything else but did enjoy his Big Mac.  I have a new favorite item from McDonald’s when we visit.

At the end of the thirty days, Spurlock had gained 25 pounds.  His cholesterol was 230.  He was in pretty bad shape.  Six weeks after this movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, McDonald’s moved to eliminate the super size option from their menu items.  Of course, they deny that the film had anything to do with it, but I don’t believe that was the case.  At one point in the film, Spurlock shows how the sizes changed through the years – how a “small” fries became a “kiddie” size and the “large” became “medium”.  We as a nation are demanding more and more food in our diet, period.

The DVD has some decent extra material.  The deleted scenes with the couple who collected all the McDonald’s items were interesting if only to see how much they market their brand in terms of toys and promotional material.  I guess this was supposed to tie in with the marketing angle, but I just thought it was no different than those of us who have rooms filled with Star Trek memorabilia.

Of all the bonus features, probably the one that is the oddest is when Spurlock puts various foods in jars and watches to see how they break down over time.  He tries different sandwiches and fries.  After ten weeks, pretty much all of the sandwiches had deteriorated, were moldy, and smelled horrible.  I know that because the intern threw them away at that point due to how they made the office smell.  The french fries from McDonalds however looked the same as they do when they are served, maybe a little wilted.  This is after ten weeks of sitting in a glass jar with a loose top.  What the hell do they do to those potatoes?

I think Super Size Me is a fun film to watch and it might wake up some people who indulge in fast food a little too often.  In my opinion, one of the biggest issues is portion control, and Spurlock really doesn’t address this part of the argument.  Would he have suffered as much had he eaten the smallest sizes of everything?  It would have been interesting to see someone else doing it alongside him and eating smaller portions of the same food.  It’s not a scientific experiment by far, and I think those on the other side of the argument against fast foods can embrace the film with too much fervor.  I do recommend the film, however.  I know they show it in our high school health classes and I think it can be an eye-opening and educational experience.


BONUS FEATURES:

• Deleted Scenes
• Extra Interviews with Phil Lempert (Supermarket Guru), Phil Lawler (P.E. 4 Life), Don Gorske (Big Mac Expert), The McDonald’s Project, Chip Shop, and Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation)
• The Smoking Fry