Super size me

Last night I watched the documentary "Super size me" which follows Morgan Spurlock through a month long binge sustained only by food and drink sold at McDonald's. His health is followed by a team of three doctors, his mental (and sexual) well being are closely followed by his long suffering vegan girlfriend, and his every meal are tapped by an ever present camera. Thankfully, interspersed with the caloric binge are commentary on the fast food industry, the nations health (or lack thereof) and constant graphic reminders of America's super fat adults and children, and our distinct lack of knowledge about that most basic of daily functions, eating. Asking members of the public what a calorie is generally draws blank stares and shrugs, the best answer being "is it the calorie content of a calorie?"

Many of the results are hardly surprising - eating and average of 5,000 calories a day with insufficient vitamins and excesses of fat his weight balloons by 25 lbs during the month, a 13.5% weight gain. He also finds himself experiencing sugar induced food addiction with mood swings and headaches that are relieved by a nice dose of clown food. His cholesterol shoots up from significantly below 200 to significantly above it. While his Big Mac appetite surges his sexual appetite diminishes.

The big surprise to his doctors was a rapid decline in his liver function, symptomatic of a "fatty liver" and indicated by off the scale levels of various waste chemicals in his blood. All three doctors are surprised by this, indicating they would have expected it of a binge drinker but not a binge eater. Eventually 21 days into the exercise he is advised to abandon it. The next shot is Spurlock on a couch eating more McDonald's.

While "Super size me" succeeds as an entertaining and informative film, it fails to be a heavy weight work that could bring down McDonald's house of fat. It will be easy for McDonald's to point out that eating three-squares of McDonald's a day is just not sensible. In a recent law-suit against them they claim that the dangers of this are "well known". As Spurlock points out, this is hardly the case and one in four restaurants he visited had no nutritional information available at all, and half did not have it on display. If fast food is so bad for us in excess why doesn't each burger wrapper have a government health warning on it? Spurlock's answer, hinted at in the beginning of the film, "its only a matter of time".

To further fuel McDonald's defense take the individual interviewed by Spurlock who has eaten over 19,000 Big Mac's since he first went to a McDonald's (including nine on the first day). On a diet averaging over two Big Mac's a day, he is not significantly overweight, and he has a healthy cholesterol level. Spurlock slips this detail in at the bottom of the screen during the closing "post binge" debriefing, but it stuck in my mind. There is clearly a lot of room for more detailed research if McDonald's is ever to be successfully sued for deliberately selling meals of mass destruction (MMD). To have more credibility someone really needs to do a long term study where the person eats only at McDonald's but doesn't double their calorie intake. This might help prove whether a McDonald's diet is fundamentally unhealthy or whether it was just the calorie binge that caused most of Spurlock's problems.

Hard-hitting and technically in-depth documentaries seldom if ever make compelling movie theater material. Following Michael Moore's formula of entertaining while you shock, "Super size me" takes us on a journey highlighting the ignorance of the public and the less than benevolent attitude of the fast food industry to "growing" its customer base and maintaining its dominance over healthier alternatives. "Super size me" encourages us all to laugh along while simultaneously identifying a bit of ourselves in all the hapless individuals shown along the way. Hopefully the take-away from this movie for many will be an undrunk super-gulp soda and uneaten extra-large bucket of popcorn.