[Split] McDonalds Discussion

[Barbara]

April 28, 2004

ALERT!  What You Need to Know About the Film Super Size Me

Super Size Me & Morgan Spurlock:  The Facts about Nutrition & Personal Responsibility

ENTERTAINMENT, NOT EDUCATION

•   Jim Glassman, host of Tech Central Station says, "Super Size Me is not a serious look at a real health problem. It is, instead, an outrageously dishonest and dangerous piece of self-promotion. Through his antics, Spurlock sends precisely the wrong message. He absolves us of responsibility for our own fitness."

•   Spurlock was once the producer and host of the short-lived MTV show "I Bet You Will." The show's theme—"stupidity pays." For example, he filmed a man gulping down an entire 24-ounce jar of mayonnaise, and another person eating a clam out of a stranger's armpit for cash.  (The Con, cited April 19, 2004, Available from www.supersizeme.com)

•   Super Size Me includes scene after scene of Spurlock gorging himself on excessive quantities of food and purposely limiting his physical activity.  However, he has no medical or scientific expertise, nor offers any fact-based solutions. Spurlock has no professional training in health, nutrition or physical fitness.

•   In the May 2004 edition of Esquire magazine, reporter Chuck Klosterman asks:

"Does this movie [Super Size Me] make a valid point?  No. [...]  By the third day of the experiment, he starts to act like a dying smack junkie.  It all seems pretty sketchy.  [...]  You could not sell a movie about eating fast food and feeling fine.  And Spurlock didn't just eat; he gorged himself at every possible turn. [...]  He was eating unreasonably on purpose.  [...] ...the paradigm advocated by Super Size Me is wrong."

NUTRITIONIST REVIEWS

•   Dr. Ruth Kava, Director of Nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health (ASCH) says:

"As a professional nutritionist, I think this movie does a disservice to the American people. Obesity is a serious issue in this country and the movie is not a serious attempt to answer it. It misleads people into thinking that eating a particular type of food or at a particular restaurant is the cause for a weight problem. That certainly is not the case."

•   Carolyn O'Neil, journalist and author of The Dish: On Eating Healthy and Being Fabulous! says:

"I thought that Morgan Spurlock's movie was disgusting. It was very difficult for me as a registered dietician to watch someone force feed themselves and feel so bad. He was overeating and he wasn't getting the exercise that he needed. And that can happen no matter where you eat, even in your own home kitchen."

•   Georgia Kostas, Cooper Clinic Founder and former Director of Nutrition says:

"I felt the movie was about extremes. In all my years of diet counseling I've never met anyone who could double their calories, double their fat, double their cholesterol and not expect to have some pretty extreme outcomes. Fortunately we don't eat that way and healthy eating and healthy maintenance of weight is possible eating out at any restaurant, it's just a matter of choices."

LIMITED PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

•   Morgan Spurlock purposely limited his physical activity.

•   Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist D. Parvaz asks:

"...so you ate more fast food than the average person, and you exercised less.  With all due respect, what the heck did you think would happen to your body?"  ("Size Does Matter" April 20, 2004.)

•   As Richard Berman, executive director of the Center for Consumer Freedom, has written:

"Conspicuously absent from Spurlock's blame-the-burger publicity drive is any mention of his physical activity. Nutritionists tell us that weight gain is just calories in vs. calories out. It doesn't really matter if the calories come in the form of Big Macs or brussels sprouts. Just ask Don Gorske (who is mentioned in the film). He's in the Guinness Book of Records for eating 19,000 Big Macs. Gorske is 6 feet tall, 180 pounds, and his cholesterol is a healthy 155." ("Super Size Me is just another sick reality show" Chicago Sun-Times, March 12, 2004)

SUPER SIZE ME AND TRIAL LAWYERS

•   On March 10, 2004 the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act.  This bill bans "frivolous" lawsuits against restaurants by customers claiming the food made them obese.

•   "Trial lawyers have targeted the fast-food industry as the next big tobacco by bringing these insane lawsuits," said the bill's author, Rep. Ric Keller, R-Florida.

•   According Dr. Ruth Kava, Director of Nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health:

"ACSH encourages consumers to educate themselves about the basis of healthy diets and lifestyles: all foods can be part of a healthy diet, just as over-consumption of any food can

lead to an imbalance of both calories and nutrients. Obesity lawsuits against restaurants serve only the interests of litigators, not consumers."

SPURLOCK'S MOVIE DEMONIZES FOOD & DEMEANS EATING DISORDERS

•   Super Size Me creates a dangerous image of food and seems to poke fun at eating disorders.

•   According to the National Eating Disorders Association, "In the United States, conservative estimates indicate that, after puberty, 5 to 10 million girls and women and 1 million boys and men are struggling with eating disorders, including anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, or borderline conditions." Research has shown that approximately 40 percent of fourth graders have been on a "diet" once in a while. Eating disorders primarily affect people in their teens and twenties, but studies report disorders in children as young as 6 and individuals as old as 76.

•   Further, as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Women's Health has noted in advising women about diet plans: "Avoid extreme diets -- avoid any program that eliminates any food group entirely. Any program that eliminates food variety is not good. If there are gadgets or gimmicks to use, run out of the door. ... Look for a plan that gives you slow weight loss. One pound a week is good. You get a rebound effect if you lose weight too quickly. Does it promote eating a variety of fruits, vegetables and proteins? Stay away if it doesn't. Can you have your favorite foods? If you can't -- avoid it. You won't stick to a program where you can't eat what you like."

SPURLOCK OUT OF STEP WITH TODAY'S SOLUTIONS

•   According to Tommy G. Thompson, Secretary of Health and Human Services, "Poor eating habits and inactivity are contributing factors to Americans' declining health. There are small steps that we can take everyday to protect our health, including being physically active everyday and eating a nutritious diet."

•   It's imperative to achieve the right balance between daily calorie intake and physical activity, and to help children adopt active, balanced lifestyle habits early on.

•   According to the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports fact sheet:

   Adults 18 and older need 30 minutes of physical activity on five or more days a week to be healthy; children and teens need 60 minutes of activity a day for their health.
   Significant health benefits can be obtained by including a moderate amount of physical activity (e.g., 30 minutes of brisk walking or raking leaves, 15 minutes of running, 45 minutes of playing volleyball). Additional health benefits can be gained through greater amounts of physical activity.
   Childhood and adolescence are pivotal times for preventing sedentary behavior among adults by maintaining the habit of physical activity throughout the school years.

[LadyMystik]

Barbara: Great post! I totally agree. I know a LOT of people that no longer eat fast food because of that movie. But, get this...

I eat fast food EVERY day. I have for over a year. However, I exercise regularly. I am 5'7", weigh about 140, and have, at one point, been in jobs where my looks were VERY important. I know eating a lot of fast food has its risks, but when I am hungry and get home at 1am, I am too lazy to cook. (Would I lie about having a nasty eating habit? lol)

If anyone wants PROOF that fast food isn't the entire source of weight problems, PM me for a pic. I still think I look pretty good even though I eat junk all the time.

[LadyMystik]

Yes. It's laziness to blame someone else. I mean, it's hillarious. Kinda like the lawsuit with the lady that sued McD's or someone because she spilled hot coffee all over herself.

And, I don't eat Big Macs. McD's meat is gross to me. I go more for the Sourdough Bacon Cheeseburger at BK. :)

[bob@pogopal]

From what I understand, the lady who sued McD's over scalding her groin sustained severe injuries in the incident. I would not equate that incident with anything so frivolous as the obesity suits.

[fuzzyferrets]

thats what the women gets for being dumb

[fuzzyferrets]

well the women spilled the cofee on herself. her fault. i feel sorry for the women but it was not mcd's fault.