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Super Size Me
Super Size Me is a 2004 American documentary film directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock,
an American independent filmmaker. Spurlock's film follows a 30-day period from February 1 to
March 2, 2003 during which he eats only McDonald's food. The film documents this lifestyle's
drastic effects on Spurlock's physical and psychological well-being, and explores the fast food
industry's corporate influence, including how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit.
Spurlock dined at McDonald's restaurants three times per day, eating every item on the chain's
menu. He would always choose to "super-size" his meal if he was offered by a McDonald's
employee. Spurlock consumed an average of 20.92 megajoules or 5,000 kcal (the equivalent of
9.26 Big Macs) per day during the experiment. As a result, the then-32-year-old Spurlock gained
24½ lbs. (11.1 kg), a 13% body mass increase, a cholesterol level of 230, and experienced mood
swings, sexual dysfunction, and fat accumulation to his liver. It took Spurlock fourteen months
to lose the weight gained from his experiment.
The reason for Spurlock's investigation was the increasing spread of obesity throughout U.S.
society, which the Surgeon General has declared "epidemic," and the corresponding lawsuit
brought against McDonald's on behalf of two overweight girls, who, it was alleged, became
obese as a result of eating McDonald's food [Pelman v. McDonald's Corp., 237 F. Supp. 2d 512]
Spurlock points out that although the lawsuit against McDonald's failed (and subsequently many
state legislatures have legislated against product liability actions against producers and
distributors of "fast food"), much of the same criticism leveled against the tobacco companies
applies to fast food franchises whose product is both physiologically addictive and physically
harmful.
The documentary was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature.
THE EXPERIMENT
Spurlock has specific rules governing his eating habits:
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He must fully eat three McDonald's meals per day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
He must complete every item on the McDonald's menu at least once over the course of the 30
days (he managed this in nine days).
He must only ingest items that are offered on the McDonald's menu. This includes bottled water
. Any and all outside consumption of food is prohibited.
He must SuperSize the meal when asked, but only when asked. He is not able to SuperSize by
his own accord.
SUPER SIZE ME: AN EXAMINATION OF FAST FOOD IN NORTH AMERICA
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He will attempt to walk about as much as a typical U.S citizen, based on a suggested figure of
5,000 standardized distance steps per day but he did not closely adhere to this, as he walked
more while in New York than Houston.
On February 1, Spurlock starts the month with breakfast near his home in Manhattan, where
there are an average of four McDonald's (and 66,950 residents, and twice as many commuters)
per square mile (2.6 km²). He aims to keep the distances he walks in line with the 5,000 steps
(approximately two miles) walked per day by the average American.
Day 2 brings Spurlock's first Super Size meal, at the McDonald's on 34th Street and Tenth
Avenue, which happens to be a meal made of a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese Super Size
french fries, and a 42 ounce drink which takes 22 minutes to eat. He experiences steadily
increasing stomach aches during the process, and promptly vomits in the McDonald's parking
lot.
After five days Spurlock has gained 9.5 pounds (4.5 kg) (from 185.5 to about 195 pounds). It is
not long before he finds himself with a feeling of depression, and he claims that his bouts of
depression, lethargy and headaches are relieved by a McDonald's meal. His general practitioner
describes him as being "addicted." He has soon gained another 8 pounds (3.5 kg), putting his
weight at 203.5 lb (92 kg). By the end of the month he weighs about 210 pounds (95.5 kg), an
increase of about 24.5 pounds (about 11 kg). Because he could only eat McDonald's food for a
month, Spurlock refused to take any medication at all. At one weigh-in Morgan lost 1 lb. from
the previous weigh-in, and it was hypothesized by a nutritionist that he had lost muscle mass,
which weighs more than an identical volume of fat. At another weigh-in, it was said by a
nutritionist that he gained 17 pounds (8.5 kg) in 12 days.
Spurlock's girlfriend, Alexandra Jamieson, attests to the fact that Spurlock has lost much of his
energy and sex drive during his experiment. It was not clear at the time if Spurlock would be
able to complete the full month of the high-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, and friends and family
began to express concern.
In Day 21, Spurlock has heart palpitations. His internist, Dr. Daryl Isaacs, advises him to stop
what he is doing immediately to avoid any serious health problems. He compares Spurlock with
the protagonist played by Nicolas Cage in the movie Leaving Las Vegas who intentionally
drinks himself to death in a matter of weeks. Despite this warning, Spurlock decides to continue
the experiment.
On March 2, Spurlock makes it to day 30 and achieves his goal. In thirty days, he "Supersized"
his meals eight times along the way (five of which were in Texas, three in New York City). His
doctors are surprised at the degree of deterioration in Spurlock's health. He notes that he has
eaten as many McDonald's meals as most nutritionists say the ordinary person should eat in 8
years (he ate 90 meals, which is close to 8 years of eating it once a month).
SUPER SIZE ME: AN EXAMINATION OF FAST FOOD IN NORTH AMERICA
FINDINGS
An end text states that it took Spurlock 5 months to lose 20 pounds (9 kg) and another 9 months
to lose the last 4.5 pounds. His girlfriend Alexandra, (who has since become his wife), a vegan
chef, began supervising his recovery with her "detox diet," which became the basis for her book,
The Great American Detox Diet.
The movie ends with a rhetorical question, "Who do you want to see go first, you or them?" This
is accompanied by a cartoon tombstone, which reads "Ronald McDonald (1954-2012)," which
originally appeared in The Economist in an article addressing the ethics of marketing toward
children.
A short epilogue was added to the DVD describing McDonald's discontinuation of the Super
Size option six weeks after the movie's premiere, as well as its recent emphasis on healthier
menu items such as salads, and the release of the new adult happy meal. However, it is shown
that the salads can contain even more calories than hamburgers, if the customer adds liberal
amounts of cheese and dressing prior to consumption. McDonald's claimed that these changes
had nothing to do with the film.
REACTION
Super Size Me first premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, where Morgan Spurlock won
the Grand Jury Prize for directing the film. The film opened in the U.S. on May 7, 2004, and
grossed a total of $20,641,054 worldwide, making it the 12th highest-grossing documentary film
of all time. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary but lost to the film
Born into Brothels. "Super Size Me" received two thumbs up on At the Movies with Ebert and
Roeper. The film overall received positive reviews from other critics, as well as movie-goers,
and holds a 93% "Certified Fresh" rating on the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
CRITICISM AND STATISTICAL NOTES
Critics of the film, including McDonald's, argue that the author intentionally consumed an
average of 5,000 calories per day and did not exercise, and that the results would have been the
same regardless of the source of overeating. He was eating solely McDonald's food in keeping
with the terms of a potential judgment against McDonald's in court documents highlighted at the
beginning of the film. However, in the comedic documentary reply Fat Head, Tom Naughton
"suggests that Spurlock's calorie and fat counts don't add up" and criticizes Spurlock's refusal to
publish the Super Size Me food log; The Houston Chronicle reports: "Unlike Spurlock,
Naughton has a page on his Web site that lists every item (including nutritional information) he
ate during his fast-food month." The film addresses such objections by highlighting that a part of
the reason for Spurlock's deteriorating health was not just the high calorie intake but also the
high quantity of fat relative to vitamins and minerals in the McDonald's menu, which is similar
in that regard to the nutritional content of the menus of most other U.S. fast-food chains.
About 1/3 of Spurlock's calories came from sugar. His nutritionist, Bridget Bennett RD, cited
him about his excess intake of sugar from "milkshakes and cokes". It is revealed toward the end
SUPER SIZE ME: AN EXAMINATION OF FAST FOOD IN NORTH AMERICA
of the movie that over the course of the diet, he consumed "over 30 pounds of sugar, and over 12
lbs. of fat from their food." The nutritional side of the diet was not fully explored in the film
because of the closure of the clinic which monitored this aspect during the filming of the movie.
Spurlock claimed he was trying to imitate what an average diet for a regular eater at
McDonald's—a person who would get little to no exercise—would do to them. Spurlock's intake
of 5,000 calories per day was well over twice the recommended daily intake for a sedentary adult
male, which would amount to only about 2,300 calories. A typical man consuming as many
calories as Spurlock did would gain nearly a pound a day (which is roughly how much Spurlock
gained), a rate of weight gain that could not be sustained for long periods. Additionally, Spurlock
did not demonstrate or claim that anyone, let alone a substantial number of people, eats at
McDonald's three times per day. In fact McDonald's is mentioned during the movie to have two
classes of users of their restaurants: There are the "Heavy Users" (about 72% of customers, who
eat at their restaurants once or twice a week), and the "SUPER Heavy Users" (about 22% of
customers, who eat McDonald's three or more times a week).
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SUPER SIZE ME: AN EXAMINATION OF FAST FOOD IN NORTH AMERICA