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| An irreverent look at why so many Americans are obese and what happens if you eat nothing but fast food for a month. Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock does exactly this whilst providing a look at the food culture in America's schools, corporations and politics.
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Here's what our members thought of this title. 5 stars = very good, 1 star = poor.
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A bunch of kids sit around singing about fast food. They chant, hopped up on sugar, caffeine and various processed mystery meats. It’s a chilling start to a staggering documentary, one that makes you question the wisdom of eating cheap, convenient rubbish. Sure it’s easy and it tastes good, but enjoy it too much and you’ll get fat and sick. Just look at America, where roughly 400,000 people die of obesity every single year. Eating too much is now the leading cause of preventable death in the States – second only to smoking.
How great a risk to long term, worldwide health does fast food pose? That’s the question asked by filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, who resolves to eat nothing but fast food for a month to see exactly what effect it has on the human body. Quite a bit, as it turns out for poor Morgan. Particularly when he takes the ‘super-size’ option, much larger in the States than in the UK, a veritable dustbin of fries with sodas so large you could swim in them.
Spurlock’s a picture of health on day one. The perfect weight (185.5lbs) for his age (34) and height (6”2’). His cholesterol low and fitness level high, he’s physically and emotionally sound. Then he starts eating. To preserve the purity of his experiment, Morgan follows four simple rules. One, he can only ‘super-size’ his meals when asked. Two, he can only eat food from McDonald’s, water included. Three, he has to eat everything on their menu at least once. And four, he has to eat three square meals a day.
Forcing down his first ‘super-sized’ meal only to bring it all back up again, Morgan carries on regardless of sensible medical advice and personal discomfort. The pounds pile on thick and fast – almost 25 by the end of the month. By day 18, he says, “my body officially hates me”. By day 21, he has trouble breathing. Gout and kidney stones are genuine possibilities. While his cholesterol and blood pressure go through the roof, his liver turns to pate. His sexual prowess, says his Vegan girlfriend, is greatly diminished. His life is officially at risk, yet still he perseveres, eating as much fast food in a month as most nutritionists’ say you should eat in eight years. And hidden in his food each day is an astonishing pound of sugar, just one of the many ingredients working together to lower his quality of life.
As the days pass and Morgan’s belly continues to grow and ache, Spurlock takes us on a journey through American food culture from lousy school meals to fat-cat corporations getting rich off the enormous backs of the obese. Dramatic and disturbing but also very funny, you can’t help but laugh at the people interviewed – like the guy who’s eaten 20,000 burgers - or the look on Morgan’s doctors’ faces when they see how lousy he looks after just a week and half. Ultimately, he’s tired and depressed and sick and fat and it’s an alarming and irrefutable transformation.
If you’ve ever wanted to lose weight but lacked the willpower to eat more sensibly, Super Size Me may well inspire you to quit burgers forever. If you’re happy with your weight but hate big corporations, it will confirm your worst fears and then some. Either way, it’s an incredible movie.
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