Super Size the Truth

             In the documentary, Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock does what next to no one would ever think of doing. He eats every meal at McDonald’s for a month straight and is forced to supersize every meal if asked. This documentary displays how Spurlock’s health massively decreases over the course of the month and presents the major health risks of fast food. Overall, the documentary promotes the end of the McDonald’s fast food chain and uses the results of Spurlock’s experiment to argue their point. While this documentary was definitely eye opening to the risks of fast food, throughout it, I found myself contemplating how much of it was actually truthful. In his article, “The Absolute, the Sublime, and the Ecstatic Truth,” Werner Herzog discusses how digital effects and the media can mask what is true. He asks questions like, “What is really going on in the reality TV show Survivor? Can we really trust a photograph?” After watching Super Size Me, questions similar to these stuck with me as well. I wondered how much of Spurlock’s situation could really constitute the end of every McDonald’s restaurant in America.

            The documentary presents fast food as being detrimental to health, which the majority of people are aware of. However, the situation Spurlock puts himself into is extremely unrealistic. He eats nothing but McDonald’s everyday for a month. How many people would actually do this? While I have no doubt that the McDonald’s fast food caused the massive health problems he received at the end of the film, I question whether this particular situation can be used to constitute the closure of every McDonald’s restaurant, as no person would really ever be in a situation in which they would eat McDonald’s every single day. I feel that Spurlock and the people behind the film used this particular experiment to mask the truth, which is that when it all comes down to it, eating healthy or unhealthy is a choice human beings have to make for themselves. The simple fact that McDonald’s restaurants exist cannot be used as a scapegoat for people’s unhealthy lifestyles. While people should definitely be informed about the risk factors to health when eating McDonald’s food, I do not think Spurlock’s experiment can be used to shut the entire chain down, as the situation he uses to argue his point is not realistic at all. In his article, Herzog contemplates what reality really is, and I do not believe the situation Spurlock puts himself into is reality.  

            However, while I believe the particular experiment was not in line with the truth, I do think particular aspects of the film could have been used to give a more factual representation of McDonald’s. The film itself is used to argue that the results of Spurlock’s experiment should constitute the closure of all McDonald’s restaurants. The experiment itself is very unrealistic. However, if the film had highlighted specific aspects, as opposed to the results of the entire experiment, I feel they could have better made their point. For example, they could have focused on how Spurlock’s weight, blood sugar, and blood pressure were affected each time he ate a supersize meal. They also could have monitored how well he was able to exercise after eating a McDonald’s meal, as opposed to a healthy meal made by his girlfriend. I think the problem with this film is that it focuses too much on the “big picture” results of one experiment. In doing this, it masks the “truth,” which Herzog discusses in his article. Instead, the film should have focused more on realistic situations, such as the results of a higher calorie meal at McDonald’s or how a McDonald’s meal affects wellness, as opposed to another meal. While people do not eat McDonald’s for thirty days straight, they do eat it periodically and at times eat much larger portions than necessary. Instead of using cinema to mask the truth, as Herzog would put it, I think this documentary could have been much more effective in closing down McDonald’s or in even getting the company to make changes in their menu if they had been a bit more realistic.