Supersize Me
Supersize Me is a documentary about health and fitness in America and it’s relation to the fast food industry. In the documentary Morgan Spurlock goes on a McDonald’s diet for 30 days. Spurlock’s strict diet consists of only items from the McDonald’s menu and nothing else. The documentary also highlights the aggressive food industry advertising tactics versus health and fitness education in America or lack thereof.
Spurlock begins the documentary in “above average shape” at 6’02” and 185 pounds. By the end of the documentary, Spurlock is 210 pounds and has experienced multiple health risk incidences including, mood swings, headaches, sexual dysfunction, fat accumulation of the liver, and difficulty breathing. In one video sequence, Spurlock was going up the stairs and began breathing heavily. Of course he also had a take-out bag of McDonald’s in hand.
The doctors who followed Spurlock on his journey were shocked at his test results. One of the doctors knew the results would be bad but did not believe it would be so extreme. The doctors all urged him to stop the extreme diet. Spurlock, also concerned about his health, questioned whether he should continue or stop. In comedic style, and of course for science, the next scenes showed him enjoying more McDonald’s hamburgers. Spurlock noted that even experiencing health risks, like an addiction his body had an urge to eat more of the food that was causing his body to feel worse.
I think this was a very good and eye opening experiment. Some would say that this is extreme and people don’t eat like that, but I can personally say that people can and will live and eat like that. I am guilty of it myself, especially when traveling on a tight schedule. While I have not eaten McDonald’s meals three times a day, I have eaten fast food meals three times a day. But it is probably safe to say that most fast food is the same, especially when it comes to hamburgers and French fries. So I can understand how it might be easier to quickly pick up fast food instead of a healthier option.
On top of eating fast food because we are too busy, the documentary shows that schools are getting rid of recess and activity programs because of the pressure to perform. For every action, there is a reaction and apparently the “No Child Left Behind Act” scared schools into cutting out certain programs, including health and fitness. There was an interesting point made during the documentary, which surmised that not only were Americans getting fat, we were also getting stupid. This was followed up by a subject saying, “now we are going to have smart fat kids” due to schools cutting out health and fitness programs. Not only are we personally too busy, our society as a whole has gotten too busy for health and fitness.