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Hailey Richman

Instructor: Dr. Jen Day PhD, CSSD, RD

Nutrition 1020

April 12, 2023

Nutrition Perspectives: Research Paper

I chose to watch the 2004 documentary “Super Size Me” because I was curious about

what the effects of eating McDonalds everyday would be. I was also interested to see how

economics had a role in obesity in America and what the real, raw issue is. The producer of this

documentary is Morgan Spurlock, who is a wanderer of social issues. Morgan doesn’t currently

have any nutritional background, but his wife is a vegan chef, which is where he gets a lot of his

nutritional information from. Morgan understands the importance of proper nutrition, especially

after this experiment.

In this documentary, Morgan Spurlock discovers the idea of how the epidemic of obesity

could be linked to personal responsibility and corporate responsibility. He did this by consuming

only McDonald’s food for a month for all three meals every day. Morgan wanted to know the

true affects that fast food takes on the body and how it is affecting America as a whole. In the

beginning, they decided to take his blood and run several tests to measure his health and he had

started out with outstanding health and weighed 185 pounds with only 11% body fat. After

eating McDonalds for an entire month, they ran the same tests that they did in the beginning and

they found that he had a fatty liver, his cholesterol had risen, gained 7% body fat (now 18%), and

is now 210 pounds. These things doubled his risk of heart disease and heart failure for Morgan,

and throughout the month, he had felt depressed, exhausted, and had severe mood swings that he

didn’t have before. After he had finished his experiment, he had tried to contact someone within
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McDonalds to discuss this issue, and there was no answer, even after 13 phone calls. This

ultimately showed that McDonalds didn’t want to own up to the issues that they had caused and

fast-food companies care more about the money they are making from their customers, rather

than their health.

Because this documentary was produced in 2004, there are some outdated systems that

don’t exist today. In this documentary, children are being fed Little Debbie snacks, fried foods,

and really any junk food you can think of, with no regulation on what food groups the children

are eating. For example, in the documentary, the children could simply get fries, a candy bar, and

milk for their lunch and the school never saw a problem with that. Currently, we have the

Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which ensures every child has more whole grains, fruits, and

vegetables on their school lunch plate. Children do sometimes still throw away these foods but

they are at least being taught the importance of these foods, and that was the main point. This act

helps children that can’t afford to have these foods at home and can help attack child obesity, and

ultimately adult obesity. I had also noticed that most McDonalds in this documentary were not

very accessible with nutritional information because most of it was online and there wasn’t easy

access to the internet when you were at a fast-food restaurant. We can now look up nutritional

information on our phones and really understand what we’re eating quickly, if we needed to. We

still do have to go through that extra step to get nutritional information so people usually still

pick what sounds good to them, rather than what is actually good for them. I do think that most

of the subjects in this movie are still applicable; such as the economy relying on these fast-food

places to make them a lot of money, which is why this problem still exists.

There were three connections that I had noticed throughout the documentary that I could

connect to our textbook. The first one being that obesity is one of the highest causes of
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preventable deaths because of its severe health causes. In the documentary, Morgan had

mentioned that obesity is linked to hypertension, coronary heart disease, strokes, gallbladder

disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, respiratory problems, endometrial cancer, breast cancer,

prostate cancer, colon cancer, dyslipidemia, steatohepatitis, asthma, hyperuricemia, reproductive

hormone abnormalities, polycystic ovarian syndrome, impaired fertility, and adult onset diabetes.

He also states that 1 in every 3 children born in the 2000 will be diagnosed with diabetes. While

this may seem excessive, it is true. Smith shows this to be true by stating “Recall that upper-body

obesity, characterized by a large abdomen or waist, is more often called abdominal, visceral, or

central obesity and is related to insulin resistence and a fatty liver leading to chronic diseases.”

(99). Both, the documentary and textbook, give us prime examples of how obesity can lead to

severe health problems.

We can also consider the convenience of fast food as a main contributing factor as to why

people make unhealthy food choices. Morgan had asked several people on the street in the

documentary how many times people usually ate fast food in the past month, and the usual

response was at least once or twice a week. Usually, there are no real healthy food options in

these restaurants, so people just don’t eat healthy when they eat out. Morgan also went to several

McDonalds to notice that there were little to no nutrition facts being posted anywhere, so people

didn’t truly know what they were putting into their bodies. Smith noticed this in college students,

“Also consider that campuses have a wide variety of dining choices. Dining halls, food trucks,

fast-food establishments, bars, and vending machines combine to offer food 24 hours per day.

While it is certainly possible to make wise food choices at each of these outlets, the temptations

of convenience, taste, and value (i.e., inexpensive, oversized portions) may persuade the college
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students to select unhealthy options.” (37). Because of the ease of obtaining this food, people

continuously choose the unhealthy, faster options.

Lastly, we can discuss the idea that nurture can play a role in obesity. Of course nature

(genetics) play a major role in obesity, but there are several environmental factors that can

contribute to this epidemic. In the documentary, it was noted that obesity and smoking are the

leading causes of preventable deaths and it’s because you learn about them from such a young

age. Morgan understood that kids were playing with toy cigarettes and McDonald’s catered

towards kids with play places, cartoons, commercials, and Ronald McDonald (the clown), to try

to get them familiar with these ideas. When this documentary was aired, Morgan stated that

McDonald’s spent 1.4 billion dollars in commercials and that led all children to recognize

Ronald McDonald’s face. Growing up with this familiarity, they will continue to have these

habits as adults. “Environmental factors, such as consuming an energy-dense dietary pattern and

failing to meet physical activity guidelines, literally shape us. This seems reasonable when we

consider that our gene pool has not significantly changed in the past century, yet the tanks of

people having obesity have grown to epidemic proportions.” (Smith 100). This shows us that

while our genetics play a role, there has clearly been a shift in our economy to allow this issue to

worsen.

I learned a lot about nutrition from completing this assignment because I didn’t realize

how much nutrition played a part in our economy and society. Morgan had brought up the point

of view that school food, commercials, and restaurants had advertised bad food for children.

These consistent advertisements make the children addicted to eating that way as they get older

and allows for the cycle to continue. I was ultimately shocked to hear how companies don’t want

to make their restaurants more healthy, because that wasn’t what made them money so it allows
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for obesity in this country to rise further and further. We could see this in schools when they drill

the idea of junk food into their brains through vending machines and limited time in physical

education classes (most of them are 30 minutes a week). Limited healthy options are not

allowing for the children to get nutritional and physical education and giving no options for

children to learn about how to take care of their bodies. In the end, vending machines and fast

food restaurants are making the economy more money, so they will never take it away and allow

money to take over health needs.

After watching this documentary, I have learned a lot of valuable lessons. From listening

to Morgan’s doctors suggestions throughout this experiment, she recommended to downsize his

intake of these foods and simply drink water, instead of sugary drinks. These two suggestions

could have helped his risk of heart disease and his ultimate health, which showed me the

importance of doing that in my everyday life. I simply just want to remember that everything is

okay in moderation and I can always make healthier substitutions while still enjoying my meal.

This could possibly include using whole wheat bread instead of white bread when I make a

sandwich, having a side salad instead of fries, and just getting water at a restaurant instead of a

soda. I could easily incorporate these things into my life and remember that my health is

ultimately my choice, even though the economy pushes those healthy foods strongly.
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Works Cited

Smith, Anne M., et al. Wardlaw’S Contemporary Nutrition: A Functional Approach. McGraw

Hill LLC, 2024. pp. 37-100.

Spurlock, Morgan. (Producer). 2004. Super Size Me. [Film]. The Con.