super size me documentary essay

Documentary “Super Size Me” Essay

1. “Super Size Me” is a 2004 documentary film which tackles the problem of obesity as related to the consumption of fast food products from McDonald’s. Morgan Spurlock is the writer, director and main actor in this movie which documents his 30-day experiment of consuming nothing but products from McDonald’s for his meals. This study aims to prove the contention that fast food products can be harmful to a person’s health, and that the lawsuits filed against McDonald’s (pointing to obesity) are not unfounded.

2. Morgan Spurlock asks for the assistance of 3 doctors to establish the status of his health before embarking on this experiment — a cardiologist, a gastroenterologist, and a general practitioner. He makes consultations with the doctors, is interviewed for possible genetic illnesses, any recent hospitalization, medications taken, vices and drug use. Spurlock also goes through actual tests like ECG, BP monitoring, checking of reflexes, blood tests, iron levels, FBS, triglyceride, cholesterol and glucose levels, organ functions etc, and everything that had to be examined was checked upon.

Everything is found normal, and the overall verdict is that Spurlock is in perfect health. Spurlock also goes to consult with a dietician and an exercise physiologist to have additional information on this study, and he iss again found to be in great shape. Some examples of good levels in Spurlock’s health are: a) his triglycerides level = 43 which is low and which was favorable; b) cholesterol level = 168, is good because it is less than 200 which is the average; and c) kidney and liver functions are all good.

3. Some of the lifestyle choices which contribute to obesity are: a) eating unhealthy food; b) leading a sedentary or inactive lifestyle; c) overeating; d) psychological factors e) slow metabolism and f) environmental factors.

Examples of these are those who: i) prefer fast food over fresh food or freshly cooked food which has lesser fats and more fiber; ii) spend more time on the computer or television rather than doing outdoor activities; and iii) eat more than what one is supposed to take in one meal or do not put a limit to one’s consumption of food and carbonated drinks.

4. The high carbohydrates in the buns, biscuits, fries and hash browns; the protein in the sausages, burgers, eggs and chicken nuggets which are all fried with all their saturated fats; as well as the carbonated drinks and milkshakes which are filled with sugar and caffeine are the worst part of the McDonald’s meals consumed by Spurlock.

The saturated fats have affected his liver, which have caused his predominant feelings of fatigue and low moods. On the other hand, the sugars which are said to be in almost all McDonald’s products, made Spurlock addicted to the food that he ate and made him always coming back for more.

5. Spurlock’s weight definitely increased, although at the 3 rd weigh in he lost a pound, which the health center said was probably due to his body’s adjustment to the new diet he had, and that his body lost some muscle mass and made him gain fat mass which was a little bit lighter. His moods became bad and you can see from his face that he was always tired. This was unlike his countenance at the initial part of the experiment when he was always cheerful and good-natured.

6. This film and the information that I have learned from this course have made me gain a better perspective on my life and the choices that I can make. I have learned that there are a lot of possible choices in life and relating it to this film, I think that I have become more intelligent in my lifestyle choices by preferring to take more fresh food than fast food, avoiding carbonated or high-calorie drinks, staying away from vices like smoking and drinking, trying to make myself more active and squeezing in exercise or physical activity as often as I can.

7. In addressing the obesity epidemic, the responsibility should be placed on both the consumer and the business enterprise. The consumer has the free will to choose, so if he/she chooses to take the unhealthy option, then he/she should be held responsible for that.

In like manner, the business enterprise also has the choice to present healthy or unhealthy food products to the consumer. However, the government should try to monitor the actual nutritional content of these products to lessen the unhealthy food choices and make more room for the better options. In this manner, the final line up of products presented to the consumer will have lesser of the ill effects of obesity.

Spurlock, M., Spurlock, M. 2004. Super Size Me . United States: Samuel Goldwyn Films, Roadside Attractions.

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I say this having eaten irresponsibly at McDonald's since I was in grade school, and one of the very first McDonald's outlets in the nation opened in Urbana. Hamburgers were 15 cents, fries were a dime. Make it two burgers, and we considered that a meal. Today it is possible to ingest thousands of calories at McDonald's, and zoom dangerously over your daily recommended limits of fat, sugar and salt. I know because Morgan Spurlock proves it in "Super Size Me."

This is the documentary that caused a sensation at Sundance 2004 and allegedly inspired McDonald's to discontinue its "super size" promotions as a preemptive measure. In it, Spurlock vows to eat three meals a day at McDonald's for one month. He is examined by three doctors at the beginning of the month and found to be in good health. They check him again regularly during the filming, as his weight balloons 30 pounds, his blood pressure skyrockets, his cholesterol goes up 65 points, he has symptoms of toxic shock to his liver, his skin begins to look unhealthy, his energy drops, he has chest pains, and his girlfriend complains about their sex life. At one point his doctors advise him to abandon McDonald's before he does permanent damage. The doctors say they have seen similar side-effects from binge drinkers, but never dreamed you could get that way just by eating fast food.

It's amazing, what you find on the menu at McDonald's. Let's say you start the day with a sausage and egg McMuffin. You'll get 10 grams of saturated fat -- 50 percent of your daily recommendation, not to mention 39 percent of your daily sodium intake. Add a Big Mac and medium fries for lunch, and you're up to 123 percent of your daily sat fat recommendation, and 96 percent of your sodium. For dinner, choose a Quarter Pounder with cheese, add another medium order of fries, and you're at 206 percent of daily sat. fat and 160 percent of sodium. At some point add a strawberry shake to take you to 247 percent of sat. fat and 166 percent of sodium. And then remember that most nutritionists recommend less fat and salt than the government guidelines.

There is a revisionist interpretation of the film, in which Spurlock is identified as a self-promoter who on behalf of his film ate more than any reasonable person could consume in a month at McDonald's. That is both true and not true. He does have a policy that whenever he's asked if he wants to "super size it," he must reply "yes." But what he orders for any given meal is not uncommon, and we have all known (or been) customers who ordered the same items. That anyone would do it three times a day is unlikely. Occasionally you might want to go upscale at someplace like Outback, where the Bloomin' Onion Rings all by themselves provide more than a day's worth of fat and sodium, and 1,600 calories. Of course they're supposed to be shared. For best results, share them with everyone else in the restaurant.

Of course we bear responsibility for our own actions, so . . . is it possible to go to McDonald's and order a healthy meal? This week a Chicago nutritionist told a Sun-Times reporter that of course Spurlock put on weight, because he was eating 5,000 calories a day. She suggested a McDonald's three-meal menu that would not be fattening, but as I studied it, I wondered: How many customers consider a small hamburger, small fries and a Diet Coke as their dinner? When was the last time you even ordered a small hamburger (that's not a Quarter Pounder) at McDonald's? Don't all raise your hands at once.

Oh, I agree with the nutritionist that her recommended three meals would not add weight; her daily caloric intake totaled 1,460 calories, which is a little low for a child under 4, according to the USDA. But even her menu would include 54 grams of fat (15 saturated), or about one third of calories (for best heart health, fat should be down around 20 percent). And her diet included an astonishing 3,385 mgs of sodium (daily recommendation: 1,600 to 2,400 mgs). My conclusion: Even the nutritionist's bare-bones 1,460-calorie McDonald's menu is dangerous to your health.

I approached "Super Size Me" in a very particular frame of mind, because in December 2002, after years of fooling around, I began seriously following the Pritikin program of nutrition and exercise, and have lost about 86 pounds. Full disclosure: Fifteen of those pounds were probably lost as a side effect of surgery and radiation; the others can be accounted for by Pritikin menus and exercise (the 10,000 Step-a-Day Program plus weights two or three times a week). So of course that makes me a True Believer.

You didn't ask, but what I Truly Believe is that unless you can find an eating program you can stay on for the rest of your life, dieting is a waste of time. The pounds come back. Instead of extreme high-protein or low-carb diets with all their health risks, why not exercise more, avoid refined foods and eat a balanced diet of fruits and veggies, whole grains, fish and a little meat, beans, soy products, low-fat dairy, low fat, low salt? Of course I agree with McDonald's that a visit to Mickey D's can be part of a responsible nutritional approach. That's why I've dined there twice in the last 17 months.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Super Size Me (2004)

100 minutes

Written and directed by

• Morgan Spurlock

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• Super Size Me Summary

by Morgan Spurlock

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Written by jelo singson, Fereshteh Safdari

The film “ Super Size Me ” is a 2004 part documentary film, part health experiment directed by and featuring American indie filmmaker Morgan Spurlock. In the film, he records the effects of a 30-day period of time (Feb. 1 – March 2, 2003) in which he ate only McDonald’s food. In the process of documenting the results of the “McDonald’s diet” or “McDiet” upon the director’s physical and psychological health, Spurlock is both surprised and appalled as he discovers not only the detrimental effects of the fast food giant’s products upon himself but also the vast influence that the fast food industry has over the lives of it’s customers---including how it promotes poor nutrition for the sake of profit. Spurlock initiates this documentary as a response to the “epidemic of obesity” as declared by the US Surgeon General as well a careful study on his opinion that fast food franchises, much like tobacco companies, fail to properly label and categorize their products as they are both physiologically addictive and physically harmful---in much the same way as cigarettes are.

During the start of the movie, Spurlock subjects himself for evaluation by a team of professionals, including a personal trainer, cardiologist, gastroenterologist, nutritionist, and a general practitioner. This is done to establish his physical condition and to provide them with a baseline “before” measurement. The teams give their inputs and unanimously agree that Spurlock is in above average shape and in generally good health for a man measuring 6’2 weighing 185 lbs. They also predict that the “diet” would have some detrimental effects, such as weight gain at worst, but nothing too dangerous, stating that the human body would cope well as it is “extremely adaptable.”

The experiment would be carried out with the following guidelines:

1. All three main meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and all food to be eaten must come from McDonald’s only.

2. Every menu item at McDonald’s must be eaten at least once over the course of 30 days.

3. He must SUPER SIZE MEALS only when offered by McDonald’s staff and if offered the option he must always take it.

4. He will must not engage in any exercise beyond that which the typical US citizen engages in, pegged at approximately 5,000 standardized distance steps per day.

The experiment officially began on February 1, and on the second day of the experiment Spurlock was offered the first of a total of nine super sized meals. He is given a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, Super Size French Fries and a 42-ounce soft drink. Unaccustomed to eating that much food in one go, he undergoes stomach pains then proceeds to throw up in the parking lot. In five days Spurlock manages to gain a total of 9.5 lbs. and begins to experience sluggishness, headaches and depression. Eating a McDonald’s meal, the director claims, could relieve these symptoms and at this point one of his doctors described him as addicted as he was showing physiological signs very similar to substance dependence.

Upon his second weigh-in Spurlock had gained another 8 lbs. and by his last weigh-in he was a total of 210 lbs. from his previous weights of 185 lbs.---an astonishing 25 lbs.---in a mere 30 days.

His girlfriend, vegan gourmet chef Alexandra Jamieson, reports that he had been extremely lethargic during the later parts of the experiment, noting a particularly pronounced decrease in his sex drive, and he even began to experience heart palpitations on day 21 of the "McDiet." Spurlock successfully completes the 30 experiment, faithfully adhering to the conditions set. He then promptly goes though a battery of medical exams to fully evaluate his health. The medical team was extremely shocked at how quickly and drastically Spurlock’s overall health worsened. Most especially since they initially made predictions that the 30-day McDonald’s diet wouldn’t have any major, negative impact upon his health.

He then begins a detox-recovery program and reports state that it took a total of 14 months to gradually lose the 25 lbs. that he had gained in one month. The film ends with a question directed to the viewers: “ Who do you want to see go first, you or them?” simultaneously showing an editorial cartoon featuring a headstone of Ronald McDonald. This mirrors the first time this cartoon was used when it was featured first in an article in The Economist magazine in an issue tackling the morality of turning children into a primary market demographic. A brief coda is added to the film detailing how McDonald’s has discontinued the super sizing of their meals six weeks after the film’s release as well as in the inclusion of healthier menu offerings and a market campaign featuring a more active, sporty Ronald McDonald. McDonald’s has refuted claims that these actions were carried out as a response to the film.

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Super Size Me Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Super Size Me is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

What would your recommendation be to Morgan in the future? Do you think he should limit fast food or not eat it at all? Please explain the reason for your choice.

This question calls for your opinion.... what you would do. I would advise Morgan to stay away from fast food restaurants, as much as possible.

What are the designs and methods of research used in the movie Super Size Me? Briefly give reasons why you think so

I'm not sure what you mean by methods, other than the fact that Spurlock worked closely with doctors and was examined regularly while taking part in the experiment. He was also under medical and dental care after the experiment was concluded. For...

What do you believe are the biggest factors that contributed to Morgan’s poor health in this film (eating McDonalds is not a valid response)? Please explain in detail.

One of the themes of the film is food addiction; the premise is that fast food is actually addictive because after eating it for a little while, going without it creates cravings and physical responses much like those side-effects created in...

Study Guide for Super Size Me

Super Size Me study guide contains a biography of director Morgan Spurlock, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Super Size Me
• Character List
• Director's Influence

Essays for Super Size Me

Super Size Me essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Super Size Me, directed by Morgan Spurlock.

• Food Conciousness: Super Size Me as an Effective Case Study
• Factual Reporting and Fast Food: Is SuperSize Me Trustworthy ?

Wikipedia Entries for Super Size Me

• Introduction

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Fast Food Forever: How McHaters Lost the Culture War

“Super Size Me” helped lead a backlash against McDonald’s. Twenty years on, the industry is bigger than ever.

Credit... Ben Wiseman

Supported by

By Brian Gallagher

• May 12, 2024

The camera zooms in on a large woman, sitting on a cooler at the beach. It cuts to a shirtless man, also quite large, his face blurred out. The next shot shows another overweight man, sitting on a beach towel with plastic grocery bags arrayed in front of him.

“America has now become the fattest nation in the world. Congratulations,” a voice narrates. “Nearly 100 million Americans are today either overweight or obese.” At the end of this soliloquy, the opening credits roll — accompanied by Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls.”

So begins “ Super Size Me ,” which was released 20 years ago this month.

Directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, the bootstrapped, lo-fi documentary was a smash hit, grossing more than $22 million on a $65,000 budget. Following Mr. Spurlock as he ate nothing but McDonald’s for 30 days — and the ill effects that diet had on his health — the film became the high-water mark in a tide of sentiment against fast food. McDonald’s, specifically, became a symbol for the glossy hegemony of American capitalism both at home and abroad.

“McJobs” became a term for low-paying, dead-end positions, “McMansions” for garish, oversize houses. In 1992, the political theorist Benjamin Barber used the term “McWorld” as shorthand for emergent neoliberal dominance; seven years later, protesters against the World Trade Organization seemed to agree, launching a newspaper box through a McDonald’s window during the “Battle of Seattle” marches.

Two years after that, Eric Schlosser’s “ Fast Food Nation ” was published. A broad indictment of the entire fast-food industry, the best seller accused the industry of being bad for the environment, rife with labor issues, culturally flattening and culinarily fattening.

That last point was the primary focus for Mr. Spurlock’s stunt. Awareness was raised, alarms were sounded and nightly news segments ensued. Six weeks after the film’s release, McDonald’s discontinued its Super Size menu, though a company spokesman said at the time that the film had “nothing to do with that whatsoever.”

It would have been easy to call the cultural moment a brand crisis for fast food.

But two decades later, not only is McDonald’s bigger than ever, with nearly 42,000 global locations, but fast food in general has boomed. There are now some 40 chains with more than 500 locations in the United States. Fast food is the second-largest private employment sector in the country, after hospitals, and 36 percent of Americans — about 84 million people — eat fast food on any given day. The three major appeals of fast food remain intact: It’s cheap, it’s convenient and people like the way it tastes.

“I used to own shares of McDonald’s,” said Jay Zagorsky , a professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business who has studied fast food in America. “Around the time of ‘Super Size Me,’ I sold off the shares, and now I’m saying to myself why? That was one of the greatest stocks.”

He’s right. The stock price of McDonald’s hit an all-time high in January, and has gone up nearly 1,000 percent since “Super Size Me” came out — nearly twice the return of the S&P 500.

While the sector’s financial performance was largely unaffected, there was a very real image problem, to the point that fast-food companies were compared to Big Tobacco . A big part of that problem had to do with children, who were seen not as informed consumers but rather as victims of their parents’ choices, the industry’s predatory advertising, or both. In fact, the inspiration for “Super Size Me” was a lawsuit filed by two New York City parents against McDonald’s, claiming that the company’s food had made their children severely obese.

In the end, the chains handled the brand crisis with the very tool — their most powerful — that had caused the problem in the first place: marketing.

‘Stop Listening to the Haters’

Historically, fast-food companies have been very astute about marketing to children, realizing decades ago that creating customers early means creating customers for life. At the peak of his fame in the 1980s, Ronald McDonald was in some countries more recognizable to children than Mickey Mouse. In 2000, 90 percent of children ages 6 to 9 visited a McDonald’s in a given month.

But as Frances Fleming-Milici, the director of marketing initiatives at the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health, put it, “If it’s marketed to children, it’s probably bad for you.”

That became increasingly clear in the mid-2000s. Childhood obesity rates had nearly tripled in 25 years, and the public outcry was growing more urgent. A consortium of large food brands, including McDonald’s, Burger King, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, tried to get out in front of the problem. They formed the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative , and the participating corporations self-imposed limits on advertising to children under 13 (later 12).

In place of that marketing to children, though, the big fast-food chains have found something arguably more potent, with McDonald’s, as ever, leading the way.

“They’re hyperfocusing on what they call fan-favorite moments, trying to essentially identify how we emotionally connect to McDonald’s,” said Kaitlin Ceckowski, who researches fast-food marketing strategies at Mintel, a market research agency. “What ‘human truths’ exist around their brand?”

That “human truths” idea — essentially, the genuine emotional resonance of eating McDonald’s — originated in part from Wieden+Kennedy and the Narrative Group, the two creative agencies that the chain hired in 2019 and 2020.

As W+K New York’s co-chief creative officer, Brandon Henderson, explained to AdAge in March, “When we first started with McDonald’s, they were hesitant to be themselves and had been listening to the haters since the ‘Super Size Me’ documentary. I think the big shift we gave them was to stop listening to the haters and listen to the fans.”

For the agencies, the lodestar of that strategy was the idea that “No matter who you are, everyone has a McDonald’s order.”

A Universal Experience

It turns out that years of saturating American childhood with fast food has paid real dividends. The 6-to-9-year-olds in that 2000 statistic are now younger millennials, among the group with the highest rate of fast-food consumption today. They have a lifetime of memories that connect them to fast-food brands, and to McDonald’s in particular.

All that needed to be done was to connect the power of that comfort and nostalgia to the power of celebrity. Fast food isn’t just cheap, accessible calories; it’s a universal experience. You’re eating the same fries as your idols.

That idea animated a 2020 Super Bowl ad that showed the McDonald’s orders of famous people both real (Kim Kardashian) and not (Dracula). That spot led, in turn, to a phenomenally successful campaign designed around the preferred orders of celebrities. The first of these, the Travis Scott menu, featured the go-to meal of the Houston rapper and doubled sales of Quarter Pounders in the first week. As a result, the market capitalization of McDonald’s went up by $10 billion.

Other chains have followed suit, with partnerships between Megan Thee Stallion and Popeyes, Ice Spice and Dunkin’, Justin Bieber and Tim Hortons, and Lil Nas X and Taco Bell, which named the pop star its “chief impact officer.”

“It’s not directly targeting children, but let’s be clear: The celebrity meals are for BTS, Travis Scott, Cardi B and J Balvin,” said Ms. Ceckowski. “These are people who resonate with younger audiences.”

They are also celebrities who resonate in particular with younger audiences of color, who tend to have higher rates of fast-food consumption than white consumers.

So while the vast majority of fast-food marketing is no longer aimed at children, per se — the ad budget expressly for kids’ meals and healthy menu items represents just 2 percent of the total spending — that only means that children are now going after the menu items they are seeing advertised. According to a Rudd Center study , this means they are simply ordering from the adult menu at a younger age.

In that same study, 20 percent of parents reported buying additional items for their children, which at Wendy’s could mean an order of fries to round out a meal that comes with apple slices, or at McDonald’s a soda to accompany a Happy Meal that now features only milk.

“If you look at where they put their ad dollars, it’s really just the highest-calorie items,” Ms. Fleming-Milici said. “These healthier menu items appear to be a bit of a public relations effort.”

In the age of social media, brands don’t even have to advertise expressly to children anyway, in the way they might have in the past, by buying a slot during Saturday-morning cartoons or on Nickelodeon. On TikTok and Instagram, kids of all ages see the same content we all do.

Younger people are also making content of their own, getting in on the marketing campaigns with thousands of videos of themselves ordering, unwrapping, eating — a sort of advertising Amway .

‘A Form of Civic Participation’

We may be living in a new era of social-media-driven viral marketing in the palms of millennial hands, but what hasn’t really changed is the food.

The Wendy’s Baconator, for instance, was introduced in 2007, three years after “Super Size Me” came out, and it remains one of the chain’s most popular items. A protein conglomeration of a half-pound of beef, six pieces of bacon and two slices of cheese, each burger delivers 1,010 calories and 67 grams of fat.

Burger King offers a triple Whopper, which carries similar nutritional values, even without the optional bacon and cheese. And at Chipotle, a brand often held up as evidence of healthier fast-food tastes, a standard chicken burrito can easily contain 1,100 calories. The classic Big Mac remains basically intact, at a relatively tame 590 calories.

There are still efforts to steer Americans, particularly American children, away from these options. In April, Senators Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker and Peter Welch introduced the Childhood Diabetes Reduction Act , which would ban advertising junk food to children and require stronger health and nutrition warning labels. The law “would take on the greed of the food and beverage industry and address the growing diabetes and obesity epidemics negatively impacting millions of American children and families across the country,” according to a news release from Mr. Sanders.

Fast food may be a tough habit to legislate away, though. In 2016, 91 percent of parents reported buying lunch or dinner for their child in the past week from one of the four biggest chains — a significant increase compared with the 79 percent who did in 2010 and the 83 percent in 2013.

The problem may be that while we are often scolded for eating at these restaurants, we are more often encouraged. There is a vast network of enticement — from huge marketing budgets, to family traditions, to just the tastiness of the meals — that pushes diners toward the drive-through.

In its harsh depiction of American obesity, “Super Size Me” seemed to judge individuals for their failure to resist that machine. But according to Virgie Tovar , who has written books about weight discrimination, that’s an unfair indictment — especially when applied to consumers for whom a trip to McDonald’s might well offer the most accessible version of the American dream.

“People in my generation, and certainly Gen Z, probably aren’t going to be homeowners,” Ms. Tovar said. “Job insecurity is really high. All these markers of what it means to be a successful American are increasingly inaccessible to these younger generations. And I think about the things that are : They’re these cheaper consumer goods, and some of them are food.”

Eating McDonald’s, she said, should be seen as “a form of civic participation — whether we want to admit it or not.”

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Super Size Me Documentary Analysis

Super Size Me is an American Documentary film that was day-viewed back in 2004. It was directed by Morgan Spurlock who was an American filmmaker who decided to eat only burger for one month and chose McDonald’s as a fast food restaurant to feed him during his documentary experiment film. The film documented Spurlock daily lifestyle. The focus was not only on his physical state, but also his psychological well-being. It revealed everything needed to be known on fast food industry and its influence in regard of poor nutrition for making profit. Three meals at McDonalds was Spurlock daily food diet. He would eat every item on the chain menu consuming over five thousand kcal which meant nine big Macs daily. Exceeding the average of intake of 2,500 kcal daily Mr. Spurlock not only gained 11 kilograms, but also increased his cholesterol level to 230 mg/dl. Moreover, he had mood swings and fat accumulated in his liver. He needed over a year to lose the weight he gained from the experiment. This was done by following a vegan diet. Millions around the world had one question in their mind. Why? What made this man to do this crazy step?

Well, Mr. Spurlock had to sacrifice his own life and health for the sake of American society to spread the awareness of obesity problems in the American society. He wanted to support two obese girls who had filed a law suit against McDonalds’ claiming that they gained weight due to eating McDonald’s food. A law suit the two girls were not able to win against McDonald’s. Spurlock was there to support them and prove what the two girls had declared. As a result of his one-month experience he was able to also prove the physiological and psychological effect of eating fast food daily. As a result of his Documentary, it was nominated for an Academy Award for being the best Documentary Feature and won Best Documentary Screenplay too.

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During the experiment he had to fully eat three McDonald’s meals per day during breakfast, lunch, and even dinner. He also had to consume every item on the McDonald’s menu. This meant at least once over the course of the 30- days period. He also had to only intake items that are offered on the McDonald’s menu. This included having one bottled water and all the other outside consumption of food is prohibited. Finally, he had to eat Super- Size the meal when offered; he cannot request to Super -Size on his own.

During the experiment Mr. Spurlock had an attempt to walk about as much as a typical United States citizen, based on a suggested figure of 5,000 standardized distance steps per day. However, he did not closely adhere to this, as he walked more while in New York than in Houston.

Within the first five -days period, he gained over four kilograms and felt very depressed. On day 21 his doctor advised him to immediately stop what he was doing since his heart was in danger. He insisted to continue his challenge as he did and achieved his goal at the end.

The documentary ends with a theoretical question who do you want to see go first, you or them? A healthier menu was added to McDonald’s and a Happy Meal was released and the man proved his point in the end.

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Supersize Me

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Super-Size Me Documentary Analysis

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Super Size Me Summary

Health Care

Super Size Me Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock decided to go on a McDonald’s binge diet for one month in order to prove or disprove the health risks of fast food. Spurlock was given this idea by two girls who were at the time perusing lawsuits against the company for their health problems. The two girls claimed

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Super Size Me

• While examining the influence of the fast food industry, Morgan Spurlock personally explores the consequences on his health of a diet of solely McDonald's food for one month.
• Several legal suits have been brought against McDonald's Restaurants that they are knowingly selling food that is unhealthy. Some of the court decisions have stated that the plaintiffs would have a claim if they could prove that eating the food every day for every meal is dangerous. As such, documentarian Morgan Spurlock conducts an unscientific experiment using himself as the guinea pig: eat only McDonald's for thirty days, three meals a day. If he is asked by the clerk if he would like the meal super sized, he has to say yes. And by the end of the thirty days, he will have had to have eaten every single menu item at least once. Before starting the experiment, he is tested by three doctors - a general practitioner, a cardiologist and a gastroenterologist - who pronounce his general health to be outstanding. They will also monitor him over the thirty days to ensure that he is not placing his health into irreparable damage. He also consults with a dietitian/nutritionist and an exercise physiologist, the latter who also deems him to be above average fitness. As it mimics the lifestyle of those who eat fast food, he will also do no exercise for the thirty days, limiting himself to under 5,000 steps per day (the approximate equivalent of 2½ miles). These health and medical experts have some predictions about his general health and wellness by the end of the experiment. His vegan chef girlfriend also has some predictions about how this experiment will affect his mood and therefore their relationship. As he goes through the experiment, he speaks to a number of people - many experts in their respective fields - on the pros and cons of the fast food lifestyle. Just over halfway through the experiment, it is evident that even the experts can be wrong, and not in a good way. — Huggo
• Why are Americans so fat? Two words: fast food. What would happen if you ate nothing but fast food for an entire month? Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock does just that and embarks on the most perilous journey of his life. The rules? For 30 days he can't eat or drink anything that isn't on McDonald's menu; he must wolf three squares a day; he must consume everything on the menu at least once and supersize his meal if asked. Spurlock treks across the country interviewing a host of experts on fast food and an equal number of regular folk while chowing down at the Golden Arches. Spurlock's grueling drive-through diet spirals him into a physical and emotional metamorphosis that will make you think twice about picking up another Big Mac. — Sujit R. Varma
• In 2002, director Morgan Spurlock subjected himself to a diet based only in McDonald's fast food three times a day for thirty days and without working out. His objective was to prove why most of the Americans are so fat, with many cases of obesity. He began the shootings submitting himself to a complete check-up with three doctors, and along the weeks, he compared his weight and results of exams, coming through a scary conclusion. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock makes himself a test subject of this documentary about the commercial food industry. Rigorously eating a diet of McDonald's fast food, three times a day for a month straight. Spurlock is out to prove the physical and mental effects of consuming fast food. While doing this, Spurlock also provides a look at the food culture in America through it's schools, corporations, and politics as seen through the eyes of regular people and health advocates. "Super Size Me" is a movie that sheds a new light on what has become one of our nation's biggest health problems: obesity. — monkeykingma
• As the film begins, Spurlock, age 32 at the time the movie was filmed in 2003, is physically above average, as attested to by three doctors (a cardiologist, a gastroenterologist, and a general practitioner), as well as a nutritionist and a personal trainer. He enlists all three to track his health during the month-long binge. 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 lb (84.1 kg). 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 also elects to ride in taxis more often, since 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. Spurlock has several stipulations which govern his eating habits: He must fully consume three McDonald's meals per day (at breakfast, lunch, and dinner time). He must sample 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 SuperSize the meal when asked, but only when asked. He is not able to SuperSize 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,[5] but he did not closely adhere to this, as he walked relatively more while in New York than Houston. 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 52 minutes to eat. He experiences steadily increasing stomach aches during the process, and promptly throws up in the McDonald's parking lot. After five days Spurlock has gained almost 10 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. One doctor describes him as "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, but it was hypothesized by a nutritionist that he had lost muscle mass, which weighs more than an identical volume of fat. 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. Consultation with his concerned 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 deliberately drinks himself to death over a similar time period. Despite this warning, Spurlock decides to continue the experiment. 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). All three doctors are surprised at the degree of deterioration in Spurlock's health. One of them states that the irreversible damage done to his heart could cause a heart attack even if he lost all the weight gained during the experiment. 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 Text at the conclusion of the movie states that it took Spurlock 5 months to lose 20 pounds (9 kg) and another 9.5 months to lose the last 4.5 pounds. His girlfriend Alexandra Jamieson, a vegan chef, began supervising his recovery with her "detox diet," which became the basis for her book, The Great American Detox Diet. "The bottom line, they're a business, no matter what they say, and by selling you unhealthy food, they make millions, and no company wants to stop doing that." The movie ends with a rhetorical question, "Who do you want to see go first, you or them?" with a cartoon tombstone for Ronald McDonald ("1954-2012") as a backdrop. The cartoon of the tombstone originated in The Economist where it appeared in an article addressing the ethics of marketing toward children. In the DVD release of the movie, a short epilogue was added about 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 onto them prior to consumption. It is claimed by McDonald's that these changes had nothing to do with the film. Another issue that Spurlock focuses on is the way McDonald's targets young children with ads before the kids themselves realize how harmful the food is. In the movie, Spurlock jokes that he will battle the socialization of his children by punching them in the face every time they pass a McDonald's so that the golden arches do not elicit happy memories

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Examining 'Supersize Me' and 'FatHead': Unveiling the Truth or Propaganda

Works Cited

• Naughton, T., Smiley, S., Monahan, T., Vine Street Pictures., Middle Road Pictures (Firm), Ostrow and Company., & Morningstar Entertainment Inc. (2008). Fat Head. Burbank, CA: Distributed by Morningstar Entertainment.
• Spurlock, M. (2016). Super Size Me. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAnCOHCVjyU [Accessed 29 Mar. 2016].
• Newman, T. (n.d.). Obesity: Facts and statistics. Retrieved from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319902.php (2018, December 27). Fat Head. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:18, April 19, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fat_Head&oldid=875583008 (2019, April 11). Super Size Me. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:19, April 19, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Super_Size_Me&oldid=891925514

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Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Supersize Me — Reflection on Watching the Film Supersize Me

Reflection on Watching The Film Super Size Me

• Categories: Fast Food Film Analysis Supersize Me

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Words: 1498 |

Published: Sep 1, 2020

Words: 1498 | Pages: 3 | 8 min read

Works Cited

• Brownell, K. D., & Horgen, K. B. (2004). Food fight: The inside story of the food industry, America's obesity crisis, and what we can do about it. McGraw-Hill.
• Fast Food Nation. (2001). Directed by Richard Linklater. Participant Media.
• Gornall, J. (2007). Nutrition: A healthy backlash. BMJ, 334(7599), 1309.
• Hill, J. O., & Peters, J. C. (1998). Environmental contributions to the obesity epidemic. Science, 280(5368), 1371-1374.
• Nestle, M. (2003). Food politics: How the food industry influences nutrition and health. University of California Press.
• Spurlock, M. (Director). (2004). Super Size Me [Documentary].
• Story, M., & French, S. (2004). Food advertising and marketing directed at children and adolescents in the US. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 1(1), 3.
• Thompson, S. H., & Bender, R. H. (2009). Food and society: Principles and paradoxes. Polity.
• Wells, N. M., & Harris, J. D. (2017). Fast food feasting: Impacts of fast food restaurants in US schools. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 36(1), 159-184.
• Wilson, D., & Goldenberg, S. (2004). The fast food nation. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/society/2004/may/16/health.business

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