Preview
SUPER SIZE ME
Starring Morgan Spurlock
Directed by Morgan Spurlock
Opens Friday, May 28
Uptown Screen
People, being a rather sadistic lot on the whole, tend to take great enjoyment in the suffering of others.
Perhaps that’s what Morgan Spurlock was banking on when he set out to chronicle his strict regimen of self-abuse in Super Size Me, a feature-length documentary about the deleterious effects of fast foods, particularly those served up beneath the halcyon glow of McDonald’s golden arches.
Certainly, Spurlock’s disgusting ordeal – during which he ate only at Mickey D’s for one month straight – makes for some of the most entertaining agitprop satire that Disney won’t have an opportunity to suppress. One must fully applaud the filmmaker’s freak-show hucksterism – seeing him down Big Macs is the modern-day equivalent of watching circus geeks bite the heads off chickens – but it must be noted that Spurlock’s gastronomic masochism hardly adheres to scientific method. No matter how many doctors he enlists to monitor his vital signs, his primary motive is not merely to test his hypothesis, but to confirm it – using himself as a guinea pig to prove that a steady diet of fast food is bad for one’s health.
"The thing is, I couldn’t ask somebody to go through something I wouldn’t be willing to do myself," says Spurlock of his grotesque dietary experiment. "Secondly, I couldn’t be guaranteed that when I’m not around and the cameras aren’t rolling, he wasn’t going to be sneaking into the closet, eating broccoli. I had to be sure that whoever was going to be exposed to it – which was me – was going to stay the course."
And stay the course he did, gaining 25 pounds in just 30 days. Spurlock’s cholesterol also soared 65 points, his liver began to resemble the consistency of foie gras, and his libido was severely diminished, all but destroying his once healthy sex life with his attractive vegan girlfriend. Undoubtedly, these results are alarming by anyone’s measure and the dramatic deterioration of his health only makes his film more compelling in that trainwreck sort of way. But given that Spurlock cut down on physical activity at the same time that he boosted his intake of foods high in both calories and saturated fats, he might be accused of skewing his results in favour of showbiz.
"Yeah, well, for me, you’ve got to think, even if I had gained 10 pounds, if I had gained five pounds, in a month of eating this food, and my cholesterol would’ve gone up 10 points, it’s significant," says Spurlock. "You’ve got to think, OK, so I only gained five pounds – over a year, that’s 60 pounds. If my cholesterol went up 10 points, that’s 120 points in a year."
Still, no matter how significant Spurlock believes his findings to be, they don’t necessarily represent anything beyond the fact that large quantities of McDonald’s food were – surprise, surprise – very bad for him.
As he says in Super Size Me, Spurlock was partly trying to discover whether there was anything substantive in the complaints of two young American women who recently sued McDonald’s for serving them food that they said made them obese. Aside from the apparent absurdity of the claims, the issue was compounded by the fact that McDonald’s doesn’t include nutritional information on its packaging. Ultimately, the case was dismissed from a U.S. federal court in February, 2003, but the presiding judge stated that the plaintiffs could restate their complaint if they could "establish that the dangers of McDonalds’ products were not commonly well known."
So, while common sense suggests that Spurlock’s experiment would render the same results in others that it did in him, it’s also common knowledge that burgers and fries are just not particularly healthy foods, especially when consumed in large quantities.
Others have already recognized that Spurlock’s mode of scientific inquiry left something to be desired. Soso Whaley, an adjunct fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, was so enraged by Spurlock’s alarmist approach that she, too, embarked on a 30-day McDonald’s diet, and is presently in post-production on an as-yet-unnamed documentary of her own. While Whaley has a right-wing agenda to promote the interests of free enterprise over those of consumer protection, her skepticism nevertheless helps establish some clarity with respect to Spurlock’s findings in Super Size Me.
"He was overdosing," says Whaley bluntly. "The poison is in the dose."
She says that Spurlock’s "junk science" misleads the public about the dangers of McDonald’s food and claims that she lost 10 pounds in 30 days of eating there, simply by limiting her caloric intake to between 1,800 and 2,000 calories a day while maintaining her usual level of fitness. Of course, weight loss is not necessarily a symptom of a healthy diet, but Whaley also claims that her cholesterol count dropped from 237 to 197 in the same period.
"I just wanted to lose a few pounds," says Whaley. "I am finished with that phase of this particular project. My 30 days is over – I will now allow myself a little freedom, although I would like to maintain the 1,800-calorie-a-day count and see how I do in the real world.
"McDonald’s was easy…. I could do my 1,800 to 2,000 calories a day and didn’t have to think too much about that. How easy is that going to be in the real world?"
Regardless of Whaley’s odd suggestion that McDonald’s restaurants are not part of the "real world," one might also notice that her experiment was as flawed as Spurlock’s. In her attempt to defend the burger-slinging chain, Whaley limited her test group to just one person, and instead of overindulging she limited her consumption and tried to make healthier menu choices such as salads and fish sandwiches. So aren’t her results just as skewed?
"Absolutely," she says. "That’s the point…. Personal responsibility is the key. There’s two choices here, basically. You can go along with the people that think we need to be regulated and taxed and we need to be told what we can eat, or we can have freedom of choice. That’s it. It’s kind of a black-and-white issue."
Interestingly, Whaley also acknowledges that in order to exercise their freedom of choice, people need access to information, and recommends that McDonald’s make its nutritional data more readily available.
"I would like to see more calorie-counts on more menus," she says. "They have to spend some money to get the calorie counts…. It’s going to cost them a little bit of money, but you know, in the long run, it might be a good idea."
Ultimately, while Whaley and Spurlock appear to be polemicists battling it out for the hearts, minds and stomachs of Americans, they both preach the same message of personal responsibility. Spurlock, whose health and weight have now returned to normal, says he still can’t blame fast food for the fact that America is a nation where people "overeat and under-exercise." But he hopes that Super Size Me will help instigate a small amount of social change that will improve his audience’s quality of life.
"I’m waiting for the movie to open now, for people to go see this and to walk out saying, ‘You know what, I need to take better care of myself. I need to think about what I’m doing. I need to exercise…. I’m going to take my lunch to work. I’m going to go home and cook dinner for my kids. I’m going to start playing more of an active part in my own healthy lifestyle.’"
But where Spurlock and Whaley differ is primarily with respect to corporate responsibility, and how much of it is enough. Spurlock, for example, is very happy to note that McDonald’s has been changing its business practices in response to pressure from consumers, some of which may have been generated by his film.
"You can’t help but notice how these things are connected. Six weeks after the movie premièred at Sundance, they announced they were eliminating super size options, and they said it has nothing to do with this film whatsoever. Last (month), they announced the roll-out of their Go Active Adult Happy Meals. When (did) they hit stores? May 6…. When (did) the movie open? May 7. It’s just an incredible coincidence again, right?"
Of course, as Super Size Me rolls into theatres, we are still waiting for a proper scientific study of the effect of large quantities of McDonald’s and other fast food on the human body. Then again, it might be more worthwhile to just forget about the food that most people already know is bad for them and focus on other, more nefarious, aspects of McDonald’s business practices. But that documentary has already been made – Franny Armstrong’s McLibel: Two Worlds Collide chronicles the lives of two London environmentalists who were sued by McDonald’s for distributing a pamphlet that charged the corporation with false advertising, environmental devastation and cruelty to animals, among other things. You can see the film, for free, at www.mclibel.com. |
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