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 Let’s
see if this scenario sounds familiar…
You’re
driving home at the end of a long, stressful day. You’re hungry,
but you’re tired, and the last thing you want to do when you walk
in the door is cook a meal. So what do you do? You make a pit-stop
at the nearest McDonald’s drive-thru for some tasty comfort food,
consisting of a Big Mac, french fries and a Coke. You get home,
you wolf it down, and about an hour later…you feel like crap.
That’s
what you get for eating fast food!
It
may not come as much of a surprise to hear that fast food is bad
for you, but what is surprising is just how devastating an over-abundance
of it can be on your physical and mental well-being. That’s what
producer-director-guinea pig Morgan Spurlock found out during
one crazy month-long McBinge, and the result is the recent Sundance
Film Festival hit “Super Size Me,” a fascinating, harrowing and
ultimately informative documentary that will probably turn you
off fast food for good.
How’s
this for a staggering stat: about 37% of American children are
carrying too much fat, and two out of every three adults are overweight.
Who’s at fault for this alarming proportion of obesity? Does the
responsibility fall to the consumer, or are the big corporations
to blame? Spurlock hit the road to get some answers, and in the
process, he interviewed a multitude of people in 20 cities across
the U.S., ranging from parents to kids, freaks to geeks, lawmakers
to legislators, and Surgeon Generals to teachers.
But
Spurlock saved his boldest experiment for himself. Much to the
chagrin of his vegan girlfriend, he would eat nothing but McDonald’s
for 30 days straight while sticking to a strict diet. He had to
eat every item on the menu at least once while consuming three
square meals a day, and he could only “super size” each meal if
he was offered. What started out as a light-hearted experiment
gradually turned into a serious health risk, as the formerly-fit
Spurlock packed on almost 25 pounds while dealing with heart palpitations,
chest pains and a dangerously high cholesterol level.
So
much for the notion of comfort food…
The
shocking revelations made by “Super Size Me” about the fattening
of America and, more importantly, the influence of fast food on
popular culture are often hard to digest. Among them, more people
had a harder time remembering the Pledge of Allegiance than the
ingredients of a Big Mac, and most kids were able to identify
a photo of Ronald McDonald much faster than photos of President
George W. Bush and even Jesus Christ.
Amazingly,
Spurlock completes a character arc that’s much more compelling
than fictional characters found in most big-budget Hollywood films.
It’s hard not to feel for him, as his initially giddy excitement
turns into genuine concern after repeated warnings from various
doctors. But through all the vomiting, the upset stomachs and
the emotional depression, Spurlock plows on to the bitter end,
when he has a party to celebrate the conclusion of his experiment
at (where else?) McDonald’s.
Okay,
so Spurlock’s experiment went a bit too far (a fact that even
he freely admits), but as for who’s really responsible for the
fattening of America, maybe it just comes down to common sense.
Yes, we all know that fast food is bad for you, but so are cigarettes,
ice cream, eggs and…well, lots of things. The point is that the
next time you feel the urge to take a detour to the nearest drive-thru
at the end of a long day, think twice. Maybe skipping a Big Mac
in favor of a healthy home-cooked meal isn’t such a bad idea after
all.
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