Supersize it

[Ripsnort]

Film records effects of eating only McDonald's for a month

25.01.2004 12.00pm - By DAVID USBORNE
NEW YORK - Normally sane actors have been known to gain or lose huge amounts of weight for their art. Think of Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary. Directors, of course, never have to undergo such torture. Or so it used to be, until Morgan Spurlock had a bright idea for a film project.
The first clue to his particular misery comes in the title of his documentary, which has become the darling of this year's Sundance Film Festival. It is called Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions and it is a sometimes comic but serious look at America's addiction to fast food.
Spurlock, a tall New Yorker of usually cast-iron constitution, made himself the guinea pig in this dogged investigation into the effects of fast food on the body. He ate only at McDonald's for a month - three meals, every day - and took a camera crew along to record it. If a server offered to super-size his order, he was obliged to accept - and to ingest everything, gherkins and all.
Neither Spurlock, 33, nor the three doctors who agreed to monitor his health during the experiment were prepared for the degree of ruin it would wreak on his body. Within days, he was vomiting up his burgers and battling with headaches and depression. And his sex drive vanished.
When Spurlock had finished, his liver, overwhelmed by saturated fats, had virtually turned to pate. "The liver test was the most shocking thing," said Dr Daryl Isaacs, who joined the team to watch over him. "It became very, very abnormal."
Spurlock put on nearly 12kg over the period and his cholesterol level leapt from a respectable 165 to 230. He told the New York Post: "I got desperately ill. My face was splotchy and I had this huge gut, which I've never had in my life ... It was amazing - and really frightening." And his girlfriend, a vegan chef? "She was completely disgusted by me," he said.
Making the film over several months last year, Spurlock travelled through 20 states, interviewing everyone from fast-food junkies to the US Surgeon General and a lobbyist for the industry. McDonald's, for whom the film can only be a public relations catastrophe, ignored his repeated entreaties for comment.
Spurlock had the idea for the film on Thanksgiving Day 2002, slumped on his mother's couch after eating far too much. He saw a news item about two teenage girls in New York suing McDonald's for making them obese. The company responded by saying their food was nutritious and good for people. Is that so, he wondered? To find out, he committed himself to his 30 days of Big Mac bingeing.
The film does not yet have a distributor and, given the advertising clout of McDonald's, that may prove problematic. But the critics at Sundance seem to have been captivated. Certainly, the film is blessed by good timing. Obesity has in recent months captured headlines as America's new health scourge. The humour of the approach - and Spurlock's own suffering - obviously helps.
At the festival in Park City, Utah, he has had teams handing out "Unhappy Meal" bags on the streets with a few "Fat Fun Facts". For instance, one in four Americans visits a fast-food restaurant every day. And did you know that McDonald's feeds more people around the world every day than the population of Spain? The makers have self-rated the film "F" - for "fat audiences".
McDonald's has finally been forced to comment. "Consumers can achieve balance in their daily dining decisions by choosing from our array of quality offerings and range of portion sizes to meet their taste and nutrition goals," it said in a statement last week.
Spurlock claims that the goal was not to attack McDonald's as such. Among the issues he highlights is the willingness of schools to feed students nothing but burgers and pizza. "If there's one thing we could accomplish with the film, it is that we make people think about what they put in their mouth," he said. "So the next time you do go into a fast-food restaurant and they say, 'Would you like to upsize that?' you think about it and say, 'Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll stick with the medium this time.'"
 Source:http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/entertainmentstorydisplay.cfm?storyID=3545438&thesection=entertainment&thesubsection=film&thesecondsubsection=general

[Mickey1992]

Did he eat 3 Big Mac meals a day for 30 days?

[ra]

McDonald's food is teh sukc, but this guy is a total a-hole.  He claims to get extremely ill by eating McDonald's food for a few days.  As bad as that junk is, it won't make a healthy person sick that quickly.  He is probably a loser with no original ideas who wants to make a film which will grab some attention.  So he puts on this "McDonald's food is poison" act.  How many million people work at McDonalds or own the stock?  They are being hosed by this a-hole who is disquising his film as a documentary when his agenda is to get his film viewed by an increasing health-obsessed public.  

Maybe his next film will be about cell phone usage giving him seizures.

ra

[ravells]

The article says that he had 3 doctors monitoring his health. I presume that they were on hand when he fell sick, but we can only conjecture.

Ravs

[Scootter]

I just did a Yahoo search on McDonalds, clicked on "McDonalds food and Nutrition" (2nd item)

and this is what I got

http://www.mcdonalds.com/countries/usa/food/



A Froudion slip perhaps?

funny in a warped way  "I'm loven it"





If he was not used to salt the sodium could do it.

http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.categories.nutrition.index.html


but the stuff aint freegen poison

[gofaster]

My senior year in college was spent at the university library, Monday through Friday. Conveniently located across the street was Burger King.  Every day (except weekends and holidays) I'd do the same lunch: plain burger with small fries and small drink, because it was the cheapest meal within walking distance.  After 3 months I'd gained 15 pounds with a noticable bulge in my midsection, and that was with a pretty good exercise regimine including crunches, pushups, weight machines, and daily volleyball practices.  To do that meal 3 times a day for a month, supersized, yeah, I can see why this guy ballooned and his cholesterol shot up.

After I graduated, I cut down eating at burger joints and ate a lot of spaghetti and cereal at home instead ($5 at Burger King equals a whole box of cereal, ya know).  I lost the 15 pounds I'd gained at Burger King, plus I lost another 10 pounds because  I cut my volleyball playing to 4 or 5 times a week and was running the other days (something I did sporadically during college), which contributed to the weight loss.

[Tarmac]

http://www.maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=lovin_it

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by gofaster
My senior year in college was spent at the university library, Monday through Friday. Conveniently located across the street was Burger King.  Every day (except weekends and holidays) I'd do the same lunch: plain burger with small fries and small drink, because it was the cheapest meal within walking distance.  After 3 months I'd gained 15 pounds with a noticable bulge in my midsection, and that was with a pretty good exercise regimine including crunches, pushups, weight machines, and daily volleyball practices.  To do that meal 3 times a day for a month, supersized, yeah, I can see why this guy ballooned and his cholesterol shot up.

After I graduated, I cut down eating at burger joints and ate a lot of spaghetti and cereal at home instead ($5 at Burger King equals a whole box of cereal, ya know).  I lost the 15 pounds I'd gained at Burger King, plus I lost another 10 pounds because  I cut my volleyball playing to 4 or 5 times a week and was running the other days (something I did sporadically during college), which contributed to the weight loss.

Good story.  I had a similiar situation but it was not weight gain, just overall feeling of ones health. My wife, a nurse, told me to go without junk food for a month straight (this about 10 years ago) on a bet. I did. The 31st day I ate at McDonalds, then went to the gym about 2 hours later. Only then did I feel the full effect of sugar and saturated fats in my bloodstream.  Today, when we do occasionally hit a fast food place (usually due to limited time, travel) I will only eat the Fish.

Bottom line: Junk food makes you feel junky.  If you're on a diet of junkfood, you'll be amazed how much more energy you'll have if you give it up.

[gofaster]

Originally posted by Tarmac
http://www.maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=lovin_it

That's pretty good.  The hip-hop targeted demographic is spot on.

My wife does some volunteer work at an elementary school, working with a 5th-grader.  As part of the program, she brings lunch to the student and they spend lunch period together.  Sometimes she brings burgers, sometimes sandwiches, but usually its burgers.  

Last Friday it was McDonald's.

She'd gotten large fries for both of them, along with burgers and large Coca Cola drinks.  The two of them were joined by her student's "friends" who quickly became french fry beggars and Coke fiends - "Can I please have a sip of your Coke?" .  She said she never gets that sort of attention when she brings Subway or Checkers; only McDonald's and Burger King.  

Hail to the mighty power of Happy Meals indoctrination to brand loyalty.

[ra]

She said she never gets that sort of attention when she brings Subway or Checkers; only McDonald's and Burger King.

Jeeez, if there's anything more toxic than McDonald's it's gotta be Checkers.

[GRUNHERZ]

I havent been to a burger joint in over a month, been eating Japanese food,  and then yesterday I went to mcdonadls and had a bigmac. I felt sick, nasty stuff.

[gofaster]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
Good story.  I had a similiar situation but it was not weight gain, just overall feeling of ones health.

Yeah, I felt like I had a pound of raw meat stuck in my intestines.  Once I cut back on eating the meat and went with the cereals, I felt a lot better.

I still eat McD's and BK, but in moderation because I usually feel "greasy" after eating their burgers.  Blegh.  Recently I've discovered the spicy chicken sandwich with plain baked potato combo at Wendy's.     Try it if you haven't already.

[Maniac]

Stay away from the fries and you would be ok i would think...

[gofaster]

Originally posted by ra
Jeeez, if there's anything more toxic than McDonald's it's gotta be Checkers.

You and me both, but she digs their fries.

[Tarmac]

Crispy chicken (breast, not processed stamped out crap) sandwiches.  Yummy, good, not greasy enough to weigh you down.  Add a cheeseburger or two if you're still hungry, and cut out the fries and coke.

Doesn't slow me down at all.