Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Super Size Me!

Tamayyurt

11:20 / 30.05.04

I just saw this documentary yesterday and I was horrified! It’s also really funny, more like a reality show where they pay a guy to destroy his body than an actual documentary. And I know there are some health freaks on this board who wouldn’t bat an eye at this stuff but I eat a lot of fast food. At least once a week but sometimes up to 3 times a week and after watching this film I think I’m going to stop. I’m not fat or anything and this isn’t me trying to loose weight but I often experience some of the symptoms he describe and now that I know where their from I think I’m going to change that… so no more fast food and soda.

Who else has seen this? What’d you think? Anybody have a similar reaction? Anybody laugh it off and dismiss it?

Triplets

12:39 / 30.05.04

Fast food is unhealthy? I am shocked.

Whoever eats at McDonald's takes their health into their own hands as far as I'm concerned.

Triplets

12:49 / 30.05.04

To add; I personally find the idea of guy destroying his body with fast food be a bit tasteless, and also kind of pointless. Shock tactics simply do not work with consumers any more.

Also, you say you're not fat. But are you thin? I would say going to McD's 3 out of 7 days a week is really bad but have you not thought that yourself before you saw the program?

Tamayyurt

13:16 / 30.05.04

Yeah, I'm very thin and I knew it was bad but since I'm pretty "fit" I figured my body could handle it. I didn't know it was destroying my liver and all that other stuff.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:06 / 12.09.04

But there was that guy who was thin as a rake and eats several Big Macs a day.

Just back from watching it. I thought it was pretty good, a sort of Louis Theroux style of documentary compared to Michael Moore's harsher style. And it was interesting that the outward physical signs of his diet were so mild compared to the fact that after a month his internal organs were so fucked, though I do wonder whether his excellent health beforehand had some effect on how bad his symptoms were, I wonder whether it would have killed him if he'd already been something of a slob?

sleazenation

18:02 / 12.09.04

To add; I personally find the idea of guy destroying his body with fast food be a bit tasteless, and also kind of pointless. Shock tactics simply do not work with consumers any more.

Ummm but it demonstrably HAS had an effect on McDonald's regardless of what the company says - they have now remnoved the option to supersize their meals - introduced more salads and water into their menus and taken full page ads out in the Press, in the UK at least, to rebut a variety of criticisms raised in the film.

Eating nothing but McDonald's for a month may well be unrepresentative of how most people consume McDonald's products but It certainly does seem to have provoked a radical change in policy from the company.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:22 / 13.09.04

And they've set up a rebuttal web-site too. However, most of what they seem to be saying is stuff that Spurlock himself says in the movie, and they carefully miss the point of why he did what he did.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:26 / 13.09.04

And one of the true and false questions has the wrong answer too. 'This film has got Mcds on the run' they claim the answer is 'false', but then a company always coincidentally changes it's menus to be healthier and sets up a website arguing a film is wrong just for the hell of it, anyone remember when 'Devonshire Custard' ('Deven only knows how they make it so creamy!') set up that website to expose factual inaccuracies in Oliver Stone's 'JFK'?

makingbombs

03:45 / 18.09.04

The best part about McDonald's answering back to this film, in Australia at least, is the sheer wrong-headedness of the ads. First, a smug manager not even looking into the camera giving what amounted to free publicity to the movie (of course, they don't mention it by name, but really...)

And now - hilariously - new ads about new practices. "Chicken McNuggets now made with real breat chicken!" Sure... but don't they realise this just makes everyone at home go: "Um... what were they made out of before? Eww..."

Benny the Ball

17:34 / 20.09.04

On a similar theme, Channel 4 tonight has a programme about the meat trade, and how flawed it is. Why, when stuff like this is around showing people how bad diet is basically taking years off of people's lifes, do people still chomp down on rancid crap?

miss wonderstarr

19:08 / 20.09.04

Cause it tastes nice to many people. Your man in Super Size Me was never actually disgusted by McDonalds -- on the contrary he was lovin' it. It made him happy. I don't eat McDonalds often, for various reasons, but on the rare occasions when I do, unless they've fucked up my order and served it lukewarm or whatever, it really hits the spot; maybe partly cause it's a guilty pleasure.

Lord Morgue

08:13 / 21.09.04

But why did Australia get salads and muffins and springwater while the rest of the world got MCGRIDDLES!? DAMN YOU SUPER SIZE GUY! I want my sausage-in-a-pancake, you self-righteous Mike Moore wannabe MEDIA SLUT!

Add Your Reply