Thursday, July 7, 2011
More on Supersize Me
I also found myself questioning some aspects of Supersize Me, and feeling a little insulted by some of the filmmaker's methods. It's so obvious he set out to purposefully destroy his health. He deliberately quit walking his usual distances at the outset of the experiment. This has nothing to do with McDs, unless after a certain amount of time he would no longer feel the energy to walk as much. He gorged on food until he threw up, instead of stopping when he was full; supersized every time they suggested it instead of when he felt the inclination to have a larger meal, and guzzled enormous amounts of soda. Anybody at any restaurant or even at home could destroy their health in this manner if that is what they are deliberately setting out to do--even at Jared's precious Subway--though, maybe not to the extent that it occurred at McDonald's. To me, it would be so much more telling if a filmmaker determined to eat nothing but McDonald's 3 meals a day for a month, and selected from the menu as best s/he could whatever most appealed in whatever amount suited. From that approach, it would be so much more interesting so see the mood swings/cravings/other changes in a person who was just getting all their meals there, satisfying their appetite as best they could. As impressive as the stats were, I just wasn't overly impressed with what he set out to prove and how he did it.
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Sally,
ReplyDeleteI really liked reading this post. I remember when Supersize Me came out, and I had a long conversation with my uncle about it. He claimed that ANYONE who ate ANY one specific thing for extended periods of time would cause some sort of detriment to his/her health.
Of course, his argument was that even a vegetable diet, when taken to extremes, would be unhealthy. I'm not too sure that this is true...
Hi Sally,
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that this is certainly a biased film and a construction of truth, we have to keep in mind that it's a documentary and serves the filmmaker's specific point of view. This documentary style gives him the platform to take things one step further-and perhaps exaggerate his goal. Moreover, what was his goal? To prove that if you eat McDonald's each day, always supersizing orders and even your appetite as many Americans do, you are causing great harm to your health. This I believe he proves. He was not trying to prove if you ate just anywhere, always gorging, you'd do damage. He picked the fattiest, most unhealthy options-the extreme.
And you're right: it would also be interesting if someone did another revolving around the cravings and eating various amounts...and not always overdoing it. While he takes it to the extreme certainly with three supersized meals, he's only trying to prove his point that by going overboard on McDonald's, there are consequences. By showing us the extreme, we are better able to find the middle ground-and remember his film.
HI!
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