Supersize Me C/D

I wholeheartedly agree that America needs to wake the fuck up.

jbr: here's my big criticism of this whole thing...
jbr: there's so much more to it than just the fast food industry
jbr: and that sounds blindingly obvious, but it's really true
ckb: correct
jbr: it's the culture as a whole: it's car culture and suburban sprawl and expensive gyms keeping people from exercising, it's the way certain ethnic groups and classes have been taught to eat throughout history, it's the fact that there's food EVERYWHERE you go and you can't escape it
jbr: america just needs to be brought down in full
ckb: OTMFM
jbr: the other big problem with the movie was the guy's claim that eating at mcdonald's every day (or multiple times in a week) will make us all incredibly sick the way it did him -- ignoring the fact that chronic fast food eaters have established a physical tolerance it's taken them years to build up and it's usually only health nuts like him who get seriously ill when there's a very sudden change in diet. "a very sudden change in diet" killed karen carpenter, after she'd lived with anorexia for years and it was only fatal after she managed to get healthy again.
jbr: the body is resilient and can handle a fuck of a lot but not everything all at once.
ckb: mmhmmm
ckb: it's the similar situation with drug users, etc.
ckb: arrr... i'm probably going to be really annoyed by the movie
jbr: i think you will be
jbr: its heart is in the right place but sometimes it isn't -- sometimes it's just fat-mockery for its own sake
ckb: ugh
ckb: obesity is the last thing that is fair game to make fun of
jbr: uh huh
jbr: it's basically "i don't like the way you look so i'm going to use SCIENCE (cue oohs and ahhs) to make you feel like shit about yourself"
ckb: sigh
ckb: and it lumps all the stereotypes together
ckb: mcdonalds is bad. all fat people eat fast food., etc. etc.
jbr: i haven't eaten in mcdonald's in probably a year and a half. i hardly ever eat fast food.
ckb: in-and-out-burger is my last pseudo-fast food
ckb: and even then it's only once a month
jbr: once every six months i'll have white castle or taco bell or something
jbr: but i don't make a habit out of it
jbr: if i drink soda, it's almost always diet
jbr: the movie assumes that all people who drink soda drink regular
jbr: oh, another thing...
ckb: yah?
jbr: the movie talked about french fries being the only option for a value meal but i don't think it ever brought up the "dollar menu" that a lot of mcdonald's (and other fast food places) have, which sells "junior" sized items (junior cheeseburgers, etc) for a dollar each, giving people mix 'n' match options that don't have to include fries
jbr: i dunno if mcdonald's has phased that out or what, but it would definitely have been worth spurlock's time to look into

For instance, an Egg McMuffin, orange juice, and coffee for breakfast; a grilled chicken bacon ranch salad and iced tea for lunch; and a double cheeseburger, medium fries, and diet Coke for dinner totalfewer than 1,800 calories, well under the 2,500 Spurlock's doctor says he needed to maintain his starting weight of 185 pounds. By contrast, Spurlock says he consumed some 5,000 calories a day, while deliberately avoiding physical activity."

- http://www.reason.com/sullum/050704.shtml

a good point, but how many people at fast food restaurants do you see eating salads and forgoing the fries/mozz sticks/extra portion of chicken nuggets? also, what about the fat/cholesterol/sodium content of a chicken bacon ranch salad, french fries, dbl cheeseburger, etc?

I eat at Burger King at least three times a week and have done so for the past two and a half years. I never (and I mean NEVER) have time to put together home-cooked meals for myself, so I eat out probably 95% of the time. Over the past two and a half years, I have lost 20 pounds and am actually closer to my pre-college fitness level than I have been since I got married. I have never had any serious health issues.

Blaming the fast food industry is a big fucking copout that frees people from the responsibility of managing their diets.

ok, i really do have to leave now.

The whole idea of the movie does rub me thing wrong way, in a "living a clearly unhealthy lifestyle is very bad for you shocker!" sort of way.

(i'm going now, i swear)

I don't exercise at all and haven't gotten any regular exercise since I was 18. I also don't eat particularly well. Basically, I eat in moderation; my lifestyle is very sedentary so there's absolutely no need for me to eat all that much. Granted, if I ever do get off of my ass and start exercising, you can bet that I will start eating more because I don't want to be Short Negro Jack Skellington.

that wasn't at all the point.

if you haven't figured that out by now then you are either living somewhere with absolutely no media access (and therefore also no fast food) or are amazingly, mind-bogglingly ignorant.

That still leaves: then why are people still eating so much of it? Why is American obesity still on the rise? Just how bad is McDonald's for you? The "I already knew it was bad for you, duh" is a bit of an unfair dismissal.

The images this calls to mind are suspect and varied.

You will note that I never actually said that eating at Burger King or McDonald's is unhealthy; what I said was eating three supersized meals a day at McDonald's while shunning exercise is unhealthy. Similarly, eating a pound of oranges every day is healthy, or eating nothing but lettuce is unhealthy. I'm not the one making this into a binary issue (or, if I am, the binary is between "eating like an idiot" and "eating in moderation").

xpost Okay, if dude was primarily vegetarian before doing this, then this is even more invalid; radically shocking your body by slamming into a completely different diet, particularly if you're shifting exclusively towards foods you don't normally eat, is going to cause your body to have a fit.

That still leaves: then why are people still eating so much of it?

Because PEOPLE OVEREAT.

So?

My entire point is "Moderation is the key". Eating nothing but McDonald's is worse for you than eating nothing but salad, but unless you are super-diligent about the composition of your salad that diet isn't particularly healthy for you, either (or are we going to assume that the stick-thin look sweeping Hollywood at the moment is actually healthy?).

What I meant above was really "LOOK AMERICA EATING NOTHING BUT MCDONALD'S IS UNHEALTHY".

Side note: nothing annoys me more then when "documentaries" use man-on-the-street interviews to make their point.

xpost

Of course McDonalds is a huge company which carries a lot of clout, but there are plenty of people who for some reason don't fall under it's magic spell.

RIP waistline of 5 years ago ;_;

(NB: I eat less fast food now than I did 5 years ago)

Haha has had his revenge. That was probably Calum?

Haha maybe!

I just realized I'm complaining because I've gone from a 32 to a 34 so maybe I should shut up.

It's when your waist exceeds your inside leg measurement that the problems really start...

did anyone see the horrible osama doc he made

He's gotten significantly less charming over the years.

He was charming at one point?

when he was almost dying from mcdonald's food

He was channeling the Grimace!

he lost me at "Mac Shacks"

his girlfriend is so annnoying!!!

i am not cut out for this movie maybe. i hate to listen to and watch people eat, let alone kiss a burger before biting into it

who kisses a burger irl

ok and vomiting

and to top it all, a jared fogle cameo

this movie always seemed so gross to me

i mean of course the point is mcdonalds is gross but the whole thing is just leaving me thinking NO, YOU ARE GROSS!!!

admittedly i am feeling pretty froggy

mcfroggy

hey dude why dont u harass a lunchlady

i do ilke "strung out on ham" though

in sum: DNW this movie, but rereading the Old Testament part of this thread: DNW that even more

<3

McDud

The part on school lunch programs and gym cuts is just fucking horrifying.

This is the only remotely interesting part of the movie and it's so frustrating that it's not delved into at length.

sequel didn't get enough love

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1111833/

will watch

will direct and star in part III

super high me was lolsome, especially the weed-based "church" dude visits.

I thought the gym cuts part was alarmist, but I think gym in general is overrated. Maybe it's different for kids who grow up in cities, but I definitely got more exercise playing outside on my own time as a kid than in gym class, and I am quite unconvinced that it's our only bulwark against THE PLAGUE OF OBESITY, especially given how easy it is to stand around and do nothing. I had to spend a full 10% of my hours in high school in gym class, which was twice the state requirement, and they increased it the year after I graduated. And when you keep in mind that lunch hour took up the same amount of time...that's a lot of time not spent studying. But hey, it's a public health issue, so we can definitely prioritize it over funding arts education or improving academic offerings, right?

I can't disagree about the school lunches being really unhealthy, but I sort of feel like their treatment was missing part of the point too. When Spurlock was pointing out the girls eating only french fries and a coke, I thought the french fries being available wasn't the only problem, the fact that the girls were limiting themselves to ONLY french fries was another. Offering only apples instead of fries would mean they'd eat only an apple for lunch. Teenage girls freak out about what they eat, and obesity prevention should not be the main focus of what we're trying to pass on through schools. (In general, I didn't like the tone the film took toward obesity. I was horrified by the interview with the person (doctor?) who said we should be able to publically scold and humiliate fat people the way we do smokers. I don't even think it's polite to do that to smokers.)

Ok, just watched that yesterday! Good to get it off my chest.

well to be fair that doctor did say that he felt "fuck you" was an appropriate response to someone publically scolding a smoker

DUD

RIP Morgan Spurlock

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/24/entertainment/morgan-spurlock-death?cid=ios_app

I was reading just yesterday about how the liver damage he had at the end of Super Size Me was likely due to to alcoholism - he confessed to being an alcoholic for 20 years in his metoo statement, but says he's tee-total in the documentary

yeah a lot of shady shit surrounding this guy, think he did try to change at the end though

interesting to see this upthread:

The part on school lunch programs and gym cuts is just fucking horrifying.

This is the only remotely interesting part of the movie and it's so frustrating that it's not delved into at length.

― Nurse Detrius (Eric H.), Sunday, April 5, 2009 9:31 AM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

fun fact: my grandparents were actually kind of involved in this, they ran a citywide program once to swap out school lunches with healthy food from their bakery and then studied what happened to the kids test scores and attention spans, they got the results they were looking for and it became a big news story for us in the 90s, and as a result there was a lot of stuff involving them that was filmed for the movie. my grandpa bought a bunch of tickets for family and friends to see this on opening night only to see nearly all of it had been cut, outside of one phone call I think

I also liked this post:

mcfroggy