SuperSize Me

Did anyone see this documentary?...I saw the last half of it last night and needless to say I am so messed up...I wasn't going to watch it because I thought what everyone thought, that if you eat at McDonald's everyday you are asking for it...But it happened to be on and I got into it...The results were astounding...So, now I am really excited to lose weight for the right reason, MY HEALTH!!!

I saw it and was completely disgusted. Keeps me away from fast food, that's for sure!

I hardly ever eat at McDonald's...actually, Subway is my evil of choice. I think I've had McDonald's a total of 4 or 5 times in my life. I just don't like it. However my best friend LOVED it. She is one of those people that wouldn't gain an ounce eating a large pizza, a 2-liter of coke AND the breadsticks (not that she could literally eat that much). She used to have a quarter pounder with cheese MEAL (making the drink a McFlurry) AND a McChicken sandwich 3-4 days a week for lunch at Mickey D's.
I found out about this video after she had been doing this for a couple of years and I watched it. Knowing that she would not watch it on her own, I invited her over for dinner (I think that night I ended up cooking tacos - with ground turkey and low-cal tortillas of course). I put the disc in after we started eating. I told her that I had to watch it and do a report on it for one of my classes so that I had an excuse not to put a different movie in.
Needless to say, she did not even finish her second taco and I haven't seen even a straw wrapper from McDonald's in her car ever since.

That's awesome...You probably just saved your friend's life...The skinniest people can have high cholesterol and blood pressure...Just because your skinny doesn't mean your healthy...I wish someone would have done that for me a long time ago...not that I eat McDonalds because it is not really my choice either but I didn't really realize the damage food could do to you.

Super Size Me is a super-sized sensationalist piece of you-know-what.

Morgan Spurlock, the guy in the film deliberately made the worst dietary choices he could, and deliberately stuffed himself at every meal. Guess what? He got fat an unhealthy. SURPRISE!
McD's sells salads, too. They're actually quite tasty and quite low in calories, if you don't use the entire dressing packet. Spurlock deliberately avoided them. The film isn't so interesting if it's "Man makes sensible diet choices; stays healthy."

behanna, it might be interesting to know how much of McD's sales are from the super-size menu items, and how much from the salad items.  I'm betting on the super-size profits being the foundation of McD's success.  Which proves that the super-sizing is what most McD customers go for.  But I apologize in advance if I am wrong.

The point of the documentary was to show what happens when you make the worst possible dietary choice - most people that visit mcdonalds aren't going for the salads.  He chose things that a typical american consumer would order and while it was still offered most definitly said "Super Size It" to get "more value for their buck."  It was disgusting yes, And I do believe it was dramatization of fast food eating (i personally don't know any one that eats 3 meals a day all fast food) and had to be to get the point across of how unhealthy these foods can be. Seeing how he changed in those 30 days was a remarkable eye opener and has since taken me off the daily lunch break trips to the nearest Mickey D's. Its a huge reflection of how the American people think and act - we are an immediate gratification culture and and its just quick & convenient to run thru a drive for your two all beef paties, special sauce, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.  Observing the health and weigh of people of all ages in this country its easy to see how behavior such as this has effected us over a long period of time (more than 30 days)  - just my humble opinion

At the time the documentary was filmed Mc.D's didn't have such healthy options anyway. Alot of the Healthy Items were added to the menu after this was filmed. I used to work there in the 90's and needless to say I had to live on what I ate at work because I was 18 living with 2 other people and we were all just scraping by. 4.25 an hour isn't much and we got discounts on our food during shifts.  So Quarter pounders and Cokes it was.  McDonalds was all I ate, except for the occasional real food meals with my parents on a weekend I happened to be off. I know that alot of us ate at least 2 meals a day there and nothing else for the rest of the day. My 2 roomates were Shift managers so they would bring food home too. so yes we ate almost exclusively McDonalds. However I didn't realize just How bad it is for you. If it did that to his body in 30 days ( granted it was a very extreme diet ) Imagine what it will do to your body over a longer period of time. Personaly I think me and my family will stay far away from fast food. Even the "Healthy" Options and "healthy" fast food places. That unfourtunately includes Subway. I love the Sweet Onion Chicken Sandwich. But I am thinking it's better to avoid if at all possible than to take a chance especialy with my Childrens Health. 

I saw SuperSize me.

To be honest, I agree with Behanna, that it IS sensationalist. It is incredibly sensationalist and was put out there to make you all hate McDonald's.

BUT... simply because it's sensationalist, doesn't mean it's wrong, or that the point shouldn't be heard. McDonald's is not good for you. It will take a lot of effort on their part for it to become anything less than a nutritional nightmare, to be eaten at SPARINGLY, if at all. Certainly not every day like many Americans do (and I was one of those Americans)

I found that 'documentary' to be extremely upsetting and seriously gross, to be unscientific in pretty much every regard, to be sensationalist to a HUGE degree, but to have an impact on an industry that I DO Believe is partly responsible for the growing obesity problem.

And if you're hearing very mixed reviews from me, than that's all I have. It wasn't a great documentary, not like "An inconvenient truth", backed by fact, irrefutable. As a documentary, it was garbage. It was, however, a well-marketed slap in the face for an industry that needs one and possibly the right movie at one of the right times.

HK, you're my hero.  :D

That's my take on Supersize Me too.  Sensationalist and biased but not very far off the mark. 

There was a recent study published in which Dr. Nystrom, a researcher at a Swedish university, tried to replicate the documentary under more controlled conditions.  He found that some people did in fact gain massive amount of weight and have horrible health in short order.  But it also showed that some people had very few ill-effects from eating such a horrible diet.

Genetics will affect your ability to overcome bad eating choices, if you are lucky.  But it's a bad gamble to take.

The original article was published in The New Scientist, but you'd have to pay to get it.  Here is a good summary. 

You're my hero too, nyad :)

i keep falling asleep after about 20 minutes, havent made it past the puking part. :/

nyad and hk, you are both heroes to me :)

(throws up just a little)

*goes to read summary*

thanks nyad

That's a really interesting link.. and not all that surprising. The problem with Supersize me is... Mr. Spurlock was doing his own thing. He suggested mood swings, but never analyzed why. Maybe it's because his fiancee and him were on the outs over this stupid experiment, ya know?

Thanks for the link, nyad! :)

I thought this documentary really sent the right message because a good percent of people who go to Mc D's supersize their meals, make the worst choices, etc. Behanna, Spurlock had to eat everything on the menu within the 30 days and if he was offered to supersize his meal - which was many times the case - he had to accept it. I believe these were the 'rules' he made for this. Apologies if I'm wrong. :)

I used to have Mc D's as a treat a few times a year, but now the only thing I would order there is a fruit parfeit or some packaged muffin. Part of this is going vegetarian, so most of their menu is a 'no'. My family is lucky to be thin, because when my brother would go with a couple of friends to Mc D's, every inch of their table would be COVERED with some food item - fries, burgers, chicken nuggets, sodas - there was so much DAMN food! Haha, good old times...

Great documentary that is full of facts!  Spurlock's extreme diet really opened my eyes to our (husband and I) own diet.  Both of us were to the point of eating fast-food just about every day and my husband often times ate it twice a day.  And the mood swings were very true for both of us.

Lately I've been noticing fast-food commercials that advertise burgers that have up to four freaking patties on it...gross!  I guess the Big Mac and Quarter Pounder will be the next options for the kids meals..jeez...

Edit to add:  We haven't eaten fast-food crap in over a year now and we both feel soooo much better!!!

And weeding through the sensationalist crap... McDonalds and Burger King both have nutritional information on their websites, so if you HAVE to stop at the restaurants, you can make informed decisions yourself as to what you're going to get before-hand. 

I've found I can confuse the heck out of people as well as staying within my budgeted calories by getting a regular hamburger and small fries.  The looks on the cashier's faces when you DON'T order a meal is PRICELESS.  :) 

I'm very interested in Nystrom's claim, "eating 10% more will lead to their metabolism increasing at the same level. The extra energy will be burned off as body heat during sleep". 
Does anyone know if there is anymore information concerning this statement anywhere???  If this is true then it means obsessive maintainers like me can loosen up a bit.
Thanks

Supersize Me made me really crave a Big Mac and I think I actually stopped at Mickey D's on the way home from seeing it. I kept drooling every time he ate a big mac or fries. Now I'm getting hungry for one again!!!

I agree very much with HK on all parts, and he spoke so well I won't repeat what he said :)

What I will say, as a science dork I thought some of the clinical vingnettes from the movie were kind of interesting.

Particularly the fact that his diet gave him a fatty liver in a relatively short time. This is something that is most commonly seen in chronic alcohol users, when the liver begins to shut down. I thought it was interesting that this was something that his physicians had never seen in someone who only changed their diets.

Goes to show that anything in excess is awful for your body.  

Oh...and by the way...LOL...to associate the word 'Fact' with 'Al Gore' is hilarious...lol   ;-)

Well, I'm afraid, then, we'll have to agree to disagree. I believe that "Inconvenient Truth" was, in fact, the truth.