You know how you feel after you down a double bacon cheeseburger, gigantic-sized fries and a bucket of Coke from your favorite fast food joint: full, momentarily satisfied, a little bit guilty and slightly ill? Well, it’s likely that you’ll feel the same way after watching Supersize Me.
The award-winning documentary from director, producer and human science project Morgan Spurlock examines the effects that the fast food industry has on the United States. If the film only offered the shocking statistics about obesity or the facts about how much money those mega-food conglomerates spend each year trying to convince unsuspecting kids to crave their greasy foods, Spurlock’s film would be an engaging, effective snapshot of a frightening epidemic that is ravaging our nation.
But Spurlock takes the extra step of using his own body as a test subject to see what happens when he eats nothing but food from McDonald’s, three meals a day, for thirty days. A few ground rules are set for the experiment, most notably that Spurlock has to eat every item on the McDonald’s menu at least once, he has to Supersize the meal if the cashier asks him to (which happens nine times in thirty days; the first time resulting in a disgustingly funny display as Spurlock downs a Double Quarter Pounder and Supersize fries, and then immediately vomits out the window of his car), and he must limit his daily exercise to less than 5,000 steps a day to simulate the level of inactivity that most Americans experience on a daily basis.
Before he begins his month of gluttony, Spurlock visits three different doctors who each verify that the filmmaker is a very healthy man of 185 pounds, with impressive cholesterol levels and only 11% body fat. During the course of his 30-day McDonald’s binge, his cholesterol levels and liver function test become so shockingly bad that all of the doctors urge him to end his indulgence around day 21. He also gains about 25 pounds, experiences exhaustion and depression (except when he’s pigging out on the fatty food), and his sex-life takes a nosedive, as documented in a humorous interview with his vegan girlfriend.
Article comments
1 - RJ Elliott
I'll bet after 30 days of nothing but Taco Bell, he'd be on his deathbed...but I still love those damn Meximelts! ;-]
2 - Clyde
I am desperately trying to figure out why a blog on the movie "Supersize Me" has a picture of Michael Moore at the top, along with the title of his movie.
The only thing I can figure is that Mr. Moore is being used as the perfect example of what one will look like after a lifetime of fast food. Now THAT paints a picture, and not a very pretty one either.