Thesis and supporting argument of the film: The main point of Super Size Me is that McDonald’s product causes overweight and obesity in the United States. The film makes the case for this thesis by showing that McDonald’s sale strategy is inducing customers to eat more than they need. First, McDonald’s always encourages customer spend a little more to upgrade the meal size. By knowing customer psychology which is getting the best deal in comparative pricing, McDonald is welling to earn a little more from each customer. The company clearly is profit-orientated, and this is not a huge problem unless its products have harmful side effect. According to Dir. Morgan Spurlock’s experiment, McDonald’s product has excessive cholesterol, fat, and sugar …show more content…
The film provides facts, experiment, and lots of experts’ opinions. First, it gives out the fact that “America is the fattest nation in the world. Over 100 million Americans are overweight or obsess. 60% of all US adults are overweight or obsess.” (Dir. Morgan Spurlock, 2008) It shows that the problem is real and it should be an issue that everyone pay attention to. According to Eric Schlosser, American Journalist, there is one in fourteen American having meal in McDonald and nine in ten children having McDonald once a month. By this shocking fact, the film director started his own experiment with 30 days McDonald’s meal. Though a normal person may not do this in real life, the experiment is convincing that McDonald’s product have harmful effect over human health in long tern. On the other side, some free-market supporter might think the McDonald’s product already passed government’s food regulation, such as FDA, and this should indicate the food safety is within the standard. They believe in the idea of free market, the business is good to operate as long as they follow the laws and rules. However, I believe when a company has too much impact over people, it should have more responsibility or liability over its business. “Like Hollywood movies, MTV and blue jeans, fast food has become one of America's major cultural exports.” (Eric Schlosser, Charlie Wilson, 2008) In fact, instead of asking
Supersize Me is a movie where Morgan who goes on a diet for 30 days with McDonald's only. His health deteriorates throughout the 30 days of eating McDonalds only. His doctors was wrong with the outcomes of Morgan’s health. His health decrease dramatically after his diet. Not only his health decrease dramatically, his relationship with people decrease too. His emotions vary sometimes throughout the month.
In a sense that obesity is a growing epidemic I think that the documentary was fairly realistic, but who actually eats McDonalds three times a day? Morgan did say that 22% of all McDonald?s consumers were known as super heavy users, which means that they eat McDonald?s food 3 times a week or more. I think Morgan conveyed his negative opinions about the fast food chains, particularly McDonalds very well although there may have been some dramatization. The people who are most affected by McDonalds marketing and pricing practices are definitely kids and/or lower budget people. The cheap food that supposedly fills you up for longer due to the long list of ingredients in
Fast food is unhealthy and does not provide the necessary nutrients needed for a daily diet, however Mcdonald's, a fast food empire claimed in a 2004 lawsuit against them that fast food can be a part of a healthy diet. The court ruled that the plaintiffs would have a serious claim if they could prove that eating fast food for every meal is dangerous for the person and their health. Morgan Spurlock, writer, director, producer, and star of 2004 documentary Supersize Me set out to prove that fast food is dangerous for a person's health. The documentary follows Morgan on his 30 day challenge of only eating fast food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Through Morgan's challenge his weight skyrockets, his health declines and feels terrible all the time. Many people believe that fast food companies are to blame for America's obesity but the individual must take responsibility for what they put into their bodies instead of blaming fast food companies for their unhealthy eating habits .The documentary explores the idea that people should avoid eating fast food because Fast food, although more convenient and easier is worse for you than making your own meals. Fast food leads to many health risks and is not a good substitution for traditional meals. People should avoid eating
The movie "Super Size Me" is a documentary on a man who has decided to consume only McDonald's food for a period of thirty days. This man, Mr. Spurlock, has embarked on this adventure to assess the health issue of McDonald's food. Of course, there are a couple of rules. He has to eat McDonalds for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He also has to devour everything on the menu at least once. If he is asked to super size his meal, he must submit. His experiences during this thirty day trial period are astonishing. Even more startling is what happens to his physical wellness during this McDonalds rampage.
He supports his claim by first explaining the history of Plauen, Germany and how in December of 1990, McDonald’s opened its first restaurant there, but now has over one hundred and seventeen restaurants in foreign countries, and growing, with the help of U.S. State Department and Germany being the most profitable overseas market, then he talks about the fast food industry targeting children in foreign countries also because they are the ones least connected to tradition in their respective country, yet people wait for hours to eat the McDonald’s restaurants opened in their cities because they stopped caring about receiving healthy food, but this also has a consequence, “Wherever America’s fast food chains go, waistlines start expanding” (Schlosser 242), even on countries that have never faced this problem like Japan, but others like Sweden, Belgium, Holland, Ireland, and Norway have banned ads for kids and Helen Steel and Dave Morris, part of the London Greenpeace, sued McDonald’s and has been in a Libel with them for years since some of the things they accused McDonald’s of are true but majority being false, he also talks about adults being obese too, that about two hundred and eighty thousand Americans die every year because they are obese, including children aged six to
The article “Don’t Blame the Eater", by David Zinczenko talks about how a group of people are suing McDonald’s for making them fat. Zinczenko shares his experience on how fast food has effect his childhood and teenage years. He explains how teenagers can put on weight with a fast food and part of the problem is the lack in nutritional information about fast food. In addition, he speaks about fast food and the companies behind it.
Contrary to the popular belief of the time, Morgan Spurlock’s amateur documentary “Supersize Me” pushed reform in both fast food culture, and eating habits of citizens, being one of the first catalysts in a new movement in America. This 2004 film, being the first of his works to establish Spurlock as a filmmaker, focuses on Spurlock’s 30 day journey in which he vowed to eat solely McDonalds for three meals a day, and track his overall mental, physical, and social changes over this span of time. Throughout the film, Spurlock consults three doctors (a gastroenterologist, a cardiologist, and a general practitioner) as well as a nutritionist to monitor physical change and gather quantitative data supporting his claim. The film often exhibited
I believe he wanted to prove that eating McDonald’s every day is horrible for you. He also wanted to see what would happen if he ate McDonald’s for 30 days. He wanted to found out what would happen to his body. The video impacted me a bunch and challenged me to not eat out anymore and just make my own healthy food diet. I started to eat out more because of my job and having a car to drive to restaurants and fast food places so I could satisfy my hunger. I think it made a great valid point because there is so much evidence and It shows you that eating at fast food places like McDonald’s is bad for you and your health.
McDonald’s is killing Americans, at least that is what Morgan Spurlock believes. In his documentary Super Size Me he embarks on a quest to not only describe and use himself as an example of the growing obesity trend, but to offer the viewers with base-line nutritional knowledge that will allow them to draw their own informed conclusions. Spurlock's primary intention is to prove through self-experimentation that eating solely McDonald's food is dangerous. His secondary intention is to denounce the rising obesity rate in American by using statistics, his own research, and the opinions of experts. His broader message is for a general audience while he tailors select chapters towards more specific demographics such as parents or McDonald's
Morgan Spurlock’s motivation to create his documentary emerged from a certain court case, in which two teenage girls sued McDonald's for selling them products that resulted in them being obese for their age group (Spurlock). McDonald’s testimony stated that the girls could not fully prove that it was the McDonald’s product that were making them overweight and that eating their products for every meal would be seemingly dangerous (Spurlock). Spurlock to this statement into his owns hands and a decided to conduct a month long experiment, in which he would go on a thirty-day long binge of McDonald’s food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to prove if and how fast food can make a person obese (Spurlock). It is well known within the general public that fast food in not a healthy option for a meal but for many, fast food is the only
The purpose of Mr. Spurlock’s experiment was to see how eating McDonald's each day affected the daily lives of the American people and see how eating fast food contributed to the obesity. He travelled and investigated nutritionists to see what they recommended on how much fast food a person should eat and he used himself as a test subject. He went and asked people’s opinions of fast food and he saw that many eat it as convenience.
In a society that is facing numerous problems, such as economic devastation, one major problem is often disregarded, growing obesity. As the American society keeps growing, so does growth of the fast food industry and the epidemic of obesity. In order to further investigate the main cause of obesity, Morgan Spurlock, the film director and main character, decides to criticize the fast food industry for its connection with obesity in America. In his documentary Spurlock performs a radical experiment that drives him to eat only from McDonald's and order a super-sized meal whenever he is asked. By including visual and textual techniques, rhetorical appeals, and argumentative evidences, Morgan Spurlock was able
I agree with the general stance of the author, and that is that I am extremely suspicious of McDonaldization and whether it is really a harm to society rather than a blessing. I disagree with three of the five key elements of McDonaldization, those being predictability, calculability, and control by non-human technologies. Firstly, by making the daily interactions of life more and more predictable, life loses some of its meaning. People are meant to confront all different types of situations and interactions to get a feel for the possibilities of life. For example, in the case of home-cooked meals, if people were not to occasionally receive a meal which was bad tasting, how would they be able to appreciate a really delicious meal. The whole idea of predictability goes against our ‘human-ness’, because we were all created to perform differently. Secondly, calculability leads to a belief that quantity is more important than quality. According to Ritzer, “In terms of processes, the emphasis is on speed(usually high), whereas for end results the focus is on the number of products served(usually large).”(pg. 59) In my opinion, the reason the majority of Americans are overweight is because of this “bigger is better” theory. The quality of other things is also affected in this way, such as of education, healthcare, and general productivity in a business. Thirdly, I think the increasing use
In 2003 Morgan Spurlock launched on an experiment of sorts to fully understand the effects that fast food, in this case specifically McDonald’s food can have on one’s physiological and mental health by eating nothing but McDonald’s food for thirty days. Before embarking on this quest, Spurlock visited a general practitioner, a cardiologist, a gastroenterologist, a dietician, and an exercise specialist. He began his McDonald’s journey with exceptional health, by the end of the thirty days he had suffered serious health consequences both physically and mentally. From an addiction to McDonald’s food to a major increase in cholesterol levels there is no doubt that Spurlock’s health greatly declined in the month long period. Spurlock documented his journey in a film entitled Supersize Me, which has served as a call to action for the years since its release.
Obesity is probably the most significant issue facing the McDonald’s Company today. The corporation has been severally blamed for the menace due to its wide range of junk foods. As the world’s largest fast food company, it has become a target of most health related films such as Super Size Me. This is because the public blames the company for failing to give nutritional information concerning the items on its menu (Baron, 2010).