In this documentary, Morgan Spurlock eats McDonald's food for an entire month and records the effects of the food on his body. Super Size Me is number four on the list of top grossing documentary films. While doing this MacDonalds food challenge, he researches and discusses the effects of the fast food industry on America. Spurlock gained 24 pounds during the experiment and experienced psychological effects such as being fatigued all the time because his body wasn't getting enough nutrients.
What does this say about America? Spurlock's experiment shows the exact effects of eating fast food every day for an extended period of time. This is exactly what some of America is doing. Andrew Horton quotes Roger Ebert in "Documentaries Hit the Multiplexes", and says, "But in the past few years we can point to powerful documentaries that have done surprisingly well around the world on the big screen, such as Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me, which as Roger Ebert points out is not so much as an attack on Mcdonalds, as a pointed look at all fast food america" (Horton 1).
Spurlock mentions that the United States Surgeong General has made a statement declaring obesity an epidemic and the only way to stop this epidemic from spreading is to educate the masses, essentially. America's known for it's huge cheeseburgers and large portion sizes but the effects of this huge problem are huge children and adults. It seems as if it's easier and cheaper to buy fast food than to go to the grocery store and buy nutritious food. Fast food chains offer drive through, grocery stores do not, fast food chains offer one dollar cheeseburgers, grocery stores offer 5 dollar containers of lettuce, fast food chains offer smiling service and free toys to children, and often times, grocery stores do not. You get the picture.
America values it's large SUV's, houses, and portion sizes but we need to learn to value our health a bit more. Some corporations offer benefit packages that include gym memberships and a certain percent off other healthy activities so that's a start. We need to value American's children's lives and educate the future generation about nutritious foods and healthy activities.
Additional Links:
What does this say about America? Spurlock's experiment shows the exact effects of eating fast food every day for an extended period of time. This is exactly what some of America is doing. Andrew Horton quotes Roger Ebert in "Documentaries Hit the Multiplexes", and says, "But in the past few years we can point to powerful documentaries that have done surprisingly well around the world on the big screen, such as Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me, which as Roger Ebert points out is not so much as an attack on Mcdonalds, as a pointed look at all fast food america" (Horton 1).
Spurlock mentions that the United States Surgeong General has made a statement declaring obesity an epidemic and the only way to stop this epidemic from spreading is to educate the masses, essentially. America's known for it's huge cheeseburgers and large portion sizes but the effects of this huge problem are huge children and adults. It seems as if it's easier and cheaper to buy fast food than to go to the grocery store and buy nutritious food. Fast food chains offer drive through, grocery stores do not, fast food chains offer one dollar cheeseburgers, grocery stores offer 5 dollar containers of lettuce, fast food chains offer smiling service and free toys to children, and often times, grocery stores do not. You get the picture.
America values it's large SUV's, houses, and portion sizes but we need to learn to value our health a bit more. Some corporations offer benefit packages that include gym memberships and a certain percent off other healthy activities so that's a start. We need to value American's children's lives and educate the future generation about nutritious foods and healthy activities.
Additional Links:
- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521/
- http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
- http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-204_162-326858.html