THERE’S NO QUESTION that America is getting fatter by the day. According to the Centers for Disease Control, next to smoking, poor diet and physical inactivity are the leading causes of preventable death in this country. Two out of three adults and 37 percent of children are considered to be overweight or obese. A new study shows that the average child’s blood pressure is up, increasing the risks of early hypertension. Yet despite these warning signs, Americans are consuming in larger amounts than ever.
Just walk into your local 7-Eleven for a fountain drink and witness the enormity of the drink sizes: There’s the traditional Big Gulp (32 ounces), the Super Big Gulp (44 ounces), and the X-Treme Gulp Mug (52 ounces or 1.5 liters!)–not to mention the more curiously named Slurp and Gulp (32 ounces of soda plus 22 ounces of Slurpee). How much we are eating goes without saying. But just for the sake of shock value, out in theaters today is the award-winning documentary Super Size Me. In it, director and star Morgan Spurlock embarks on a month-long diet consisting solely of McDonald’s food.
THE GROUND RULES were simple: Spurlock would eat only what is available over the counter (including bottled water), would super-size meals only when asked, and would sample every item on the menu at least once. But he also ate three times a day and cut down on his physical activity.
The point? To show just how harmful McDonald’s can be to your health. With the aid of doctors, dieticians, and trainers, Spurlock charts his decline over four weeks, gaining 24 pounds and increasing his cholesterol by 40 percent.
Lawsuits have been filed in recent years by people who blame the fast-food industry for giving them products that weren’t the most healthy. One of the plaintiffs suing McDonald’s was 5’6″ and 270 pounds while another was 4’10” and 170 pounds. Though a judge did not proceed with the case, room was left for future lawsuits if it can be shown that a restaurant like McDonald’s clearly and without doubt caused a person’s weight-gain and ill health. This seems to have prompted Spurlock to go on the McDonald’s diet in an attempt to prove that the Golden Arches, not our decisions–are to blame for our fatness.
Spurlock “absolves us of responsibility for our own fitness,” writes James K. Glassman, host of TechCentral Station, who describes Super Size Me as an “outrageously dishonest and dangerous piece of self-promotion.” Glassman explains that while an individual can consume between 2,000 and 3,000 calories per day, Spurlock “eats 5,000 to 5,500 calories a day. Nutritionists calculate that a man gains roughly a pound for every 3,500 extra calories, so roughly every three days, Spurlock overeats his way to an extra two pounds or more.”
But is it possible to eat at McDonald’s within a healthy caloric range? Glassman picks out an Egg McMuffin, orange juice, and coffee for breakfast, a Big Mac, medium fries, Coke, and a hot fudge sundae for lunch, and 10 McNuggets with dipping sauce, milk, and a parfait for dinner. All of which comes to 2,730 calories. “Now double it (two Big Macs, 20 McNuggets) and you get a notion of what Spurlock ate every day,” he says.
The results are about what you would expect. A week after he goes on the diet, Spurlock’s numbers are off the charts. Doctors urge him to seek better sources of nutrients while his girlfriend begins to notice his bedroom performance is not up to par. Spurlock complains of irritability, lethargy, and other side effects. In one gut-wrenching scene, he tries to keep down his super-sized meal, only to regurgitate it outside his car window. (And if that doesn’t repulse you, the film’s presentation of stomach-reduction surgery on a 300-pound man will.) In the early hours of Day 21, Spurlock wakes up to the feeling of chest pains and comes close to quitting. One of his physicians says he is “pickling” his liver the way an alcoholic would by drinking. But somehow he manages to survive the ordeal, even ending his experiment with–what else?–a McDonald’s party complete with children, balloons, and toys. (It would be easy to hate Spurlock if only he were as irritable or unpleasant as Michael Moore. Instead he is an affable fellow who talks genially to friend and foe alike and never talks down to the often young and large, smiling employees of the Golden Arches.)
But between Spurlock’s insane diet and Glassman’s calorie-conscious menu, would it be possible to eat McDonald’s under both caloric and dietetic restrictions–namely within the framework of the USDA’s Food Guide Pyramid or the U.N.’s nutrition guidelines? According to James Myers, a graduate student of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, the answer is a qualified yes. He and his fellow students were tasked with finding out how one can eat McDonald’s for a week under strict dietary constraints, in what he terms “a mixed-integer-linear program.” By inputting the McDonald’s Nutritional Chart into Microsoft Excel and using a simplex algorithm to perform calculations, Myers and his colleagues were able to come up with a sustainable diet at McDonald’s, including some personal preferences. He asks me to eliminate five items I dislike from the menu (such as the Chicken McGrill) and five I really enjoy (such as the Filet-O-Fish and medium fries), along with my own personal physical statistics (weight, height, amount of exercise). I need about 3,085 calories per day and using the USDA guidelines, my menu is created: an Egg McMuffin, hash browns, and large coffee for breakfast, and a hamburger, Super Size fries, a child-size Coke, and a Fruit ‘n’ Yogurt Parfait for lunch or dinner. Under the U.N. guidelines, I get more variety, including a Crispy Chicken sandwich, a Grilled Chicken Caesar salad, and a hot fudge sundae.
This model is still imperfect (I seem to be low on calcium, iron, and fiber, and I don’t see a Filet-O-Fish anywhere on my menu) but it’s certainly workable. Myers says the first test of the model was vastly uneatable: “The first time I ran it through, I had 60 cups of coffee and some barbecue sauce” for an entire week. And what he and his classmates have done is no breakthrough. “You can use this process,” he explains, “in solving other assignment problems like in major league baseball when you’re trying to schedule home and away games.”
Not that this makes Super Size Me entirely pointless. Other factors Spurlock targets more effectively are the school lunch rooms (where often unhealthy choices are available to students without parental guidance), the decline in physical education, and the massive consumption of soda and drink sizes as found in 7-Eleven.
SPURLOCK CALLS HIS EXPERIMENT “extreme” and says McDonald’s is not the only transgressor, though it is certainly “iconic” of the industry, as he told NBC’s Today show. But if McDonald’s can lead the charge towards super-sizing, causing competitors like Wendy’s and Burger King to offer “Biggie” and “King” portions respectively, then certainly McDonald’s can also lead them away. After Super Size Me debuted at Sundance, McDonald’s eliminated the Super Size menu option. Later, the company announced its new Adult Happy Meal, offering bottled water, salad, a pedometer, and a nutrition guide.
Not that people go to McDonald’s for water and salad. Spurlock himself expresses his love for the Big Mac, which may not be all that bad in and of itself: On his journeys, Spurlock encounters a tall, lanky man renowned for eating more than 700 Big Macs each year–more stunning, his cholesterol is under 200. (You might think it’s genetics, but according to a recent Reuters report, “Two top French nutritionists are telling people to go for a Big Mac and keep their fingers off the traditional French quiche. . . . a new food guide praises the McDonald’s burger for having a higher and healthier protein-to-fat ratio than France’s Quiche Lorraine.”)
Spurlock says he hopes the film creates dialogue and that fast-food companies start providing better information for their customers. But there is only so much one side can do. On the other side, as even the filmmaker concedes, are the parents and the need for them to take greater responsibility for themselves and for their children. Cut down on the burgers and fries, exercise more, and by all means, avoid the Slurp and Gulp.
Victorino Matus is an assistant managing editor at The Weekly Standard.
