Super Size Me: The Fast Food Industry

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

In America today one in three adults are considered to be obese. Over the years the rate of obesity keeps climbing up and up. Some people blame fast-food or the environment Americans live in. After all,someone can purchase a chocolate bar at a bookstore nowadays. But, most people are looking at the incorrect factor to blame. Although the food industry is a huge contribution to obesity in America, people are ultimately responsible for their own health.

The United States of America has long been considered a “big nation”, whether is has the biggest cities, houses, and on a negative note, biggest people. In 2003, Morgan Spurlock, a healthy-bodied film director, set on a quest to show America the detrimental effects of the fast food industry and raise awareness on the controversial issue. He produced the documentary “Supersize Me”, where McDonald’s meals were consumed for every meal of the day for thirty days. His film was released to movie theatres so that people could understand the devastating effects of McDonald’s on his body in a very short time span. At the end of his experiment, Morgan gained twenty-five pounds, developed a thirteen percent

“I couldn't open up a magazine, you couldn't read a newspaper, you couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about the obesity epidemic in America.” is a quote by Morgan Spurlock, that acutely describes the obesity problem going on in America. Any way one can want to talk about the problem, it will always be a huge dilemma throughout the United States. For a long time now, people have been discussing who is to blame for the obesity crisis going on. Some people prefer to blame the government, several blame the restaurants, others the parents and even the schools receive criticism for obesity. People should develop their own ideas on the obesity crisis and to figure out who is to blame and how to fix the problem.

The majority of Americans enjoy fast food like bees enjoy their honey. Fast food is hard not to love due to families experiencing fast paced days, parents who work more than 20 hours a week, and having children with picky appetites can be rough. For most American families, it can be a challenge to not consider eating fast food more than once a week. The fast food industry has grown tremendously through the years. The one restaurant that is known all over the world for their golden arches and their big macs is McDonalds. With knowledge and personal experiences, I can say that McDonalds is by far the worst fast food restaurant in America. I believe this due to how unhealthy the food is for our bodies, the disturbing facts about the happy meals, the poor service, and the non-cleanliness of the restaurant.

Supersize Me is a documentary about a guy named Morgan who went on a 30 day high fat diet. He wanted to see the effects of fast food would have on a person’s health. But little did he or the doctors know the repercussions and the damage of this experiment would do to one’s body. 60% of all US adults are overweight or obsess. America is the fattest nation in the world could fast food be to cause of this, this is what Morgan set out to find out.

Obesity in America has been a huge controversy for years; each article has something to do with how obesity has affected the lives of many Americans. Some authors believe that it is the fast food corporations fault,

Over the last 30 year obesity has nearly doubled from 16% in 1980 to over 36% in

growth which shows that more and more people are eating unhealthy foods more often. An estimated 10% of America’s energy

The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention defines obesity as having a BMI over 30 (CDC). In the year 2000, roughly 30 percent of 20 year olds in America were obese. By 2003 that number had risen to 32 percent. That is a small window of increase. From the 1970s to the early 2000s, the percent of obese Americans doubled. This means that in 1970, only 15 percent of Americans were obese, and in the thirty years following, obesity took a sharp rise. In 1960, 13 percent of Americans were obese. The mean percent rise per year in the 1960s was 0.2 percent. The mean percent rise per year in the three decades following the 60s was 0.5, and then in 2000, the percent rise per year again increased, this time to 0.6 percent. This does not seem like

The enlarged percent of obesity amongst Americans is amazing. The National Center for Health Statistics recently reported, “the most recent national data on obesity prevalence among U.S. adults, adolescents, and children show that more than one-third of adults and almost seventeen percent of children and adolescents were obese in 2009-2010” (NCHS Data Brief, 6). Thinking back to humbler times when there was no junk food, people lived a healthier existence but were

In 2002 in New York, two teenage girls sued McDonald’s for knowingly selling them unhealthy food that ultimately caused their obesity. One of the girls was 14 years old, four feet, ten inches tall and weighed 170 pounds. The other girl was 19 years old, five feet, five inches tall, and weighed 264 pounds. Several courts stated that the claimants would have a case if they could prove that eating McDonald’s food every day is dangerous to the human body. In response to these claims, director and filmmaker Morgan Spurlock created a documentary called Super-Size Me. Using his own body, he conducted an experiment to discover just how dangerous eating McDonald’s food can be to the average person’s

I agree with Jasmine about the film Super Size Me and it’s explorative position of Morgan’s documentary film. It is a truly a realistic film that will help viewers see what McDonalds and bad food choices will do to our bodies. Morgan showed the audience every step he had taken to make us see how bad McDonalds is for us and how obesity is one of the biggest problem in not only America, but all over the world. Morgan not only gave us the facts, but he gave us the results of his visit with the doctors before and after. Not once did he try to make us believe his views, instead he made us decide for ourselves by really watching the outcome of his 30 day McDonalds experiment. As much as the doctors tried to stop Morgan from continuing his experiment

More than an exposé of the fast-food industry, Chew on This is explicit about why kids need to be informed. The authors profile real teens whose lives have been affected by fast food. They talk to an eighteen-year-old boy who decides to have gastric bypass surgery; a twelve-year-old girl in Alaska who launched a "Stop the Pop" campaign to remove soda machines from her school; a teenage boy who helped unionize the McDonald's franchise where he worked — the first to do so — only to see the restaurant close shortly after; and two sisters living on a traditional ranch.

Over the years Obesity has become a big problem in america for many reasons. The number of deaths obesity had caused is a very large number and will continue to rise. Luckily, the Super Size Me documentary did a good job at explaining the risks of fast food and has brought me to realize how important it is to to control the amount of fast food you eat. Watching this documentary I have obtained lots of useful information and it definitely got my attention about the world wide problem of Obesity.