Cancer sucks but I have no sympathy for Morgan Spurlock. I express my condolences to his friends and family but the man was a fraud. He was also a scumbag. I mean, he had one of the most punchable faces of all time. That douchebag facial hair and his goofy-dumb grin made you question how anyone could take him seriously.
He reminds me of the co-worker who keeps asking questions in meetings because he doesn’t want to go back to his job duties. Oh, he was also a sexual predator. Big surprise there, huh? He looks like the guy who is a pro at spiking a drink. He admitted to cheating on all three of his wives and other girlfriends. Also, he had been accused of rape and other “sexual misconduct.”
Yet, 20 years ago, he was all the rage with some silly documentary Super Size Me. I admit the concept was intriguing. Someone would eat at McDonalds every meal for 30 days. Spurlock claimed to have eaten up to 5,000 calories a day, which is mostly impossible for a man of his size. When I first started watching the “documentary,” I immediately began to see problems. Spurlock’s girlfriend at the time was a vegan chef, which pretty much made him a vegan consumer. This is already a flawed experiment because he hasn’t been consuming meat and McDonald’s is not exactly the place where you’ll find tofu burgers especially in the early 2000s.
Also, Spurlock later said he kept a detailed log of everything he ate. Yet, he never did release it publicly and what he did, several people found to be inaccurate. Other filmmakers like Tom Naughton examined and questioned his experiment in the documentary Fat Head. Using just one person in an experiment isn’t a good case study. That’s science 101. Spurlock should’ve had some several people consume the same foods he did to see what would happen.
However, Spurlock didn’t want to do that. He had an agenda. And his agenda was to go after the fast food industry. At one point in the documentary, there’s John Robbins who is speaking out against the dangers of the industry on how he was allowed to eat ice cream for breakfast as a child. Robbins is the son of Irv Robbins, the co-founder of Baskin-Robbins. In 1987, he had published Diet for a New America. Robbins has been an advocate for PETA and veganism. So, automatically, his interviewees have a biased agenda.
And let’s not forget what Spurlock finally revealed when his “sexual misconduct” became news – he had been a raging alcoholic for 30 years. That was in 2017. Super Size Me was released in 2004. Ergo, he was drinking heavily during the 30-day period in which he had said he hadn’t been drinking. During a scene with a medical physician, he states that he no longer drinks but he could’ve stopped for a few days or a week. If you’re consuming too much alcohol and try to quit cold turkey, it can be more damaging to your body.
Spurlock has admitted to consuming beer as his main alcoholic beverage of choice. Beers have a lot of calories and saturated fats. So, a typical 12 ounce can of beer has 150 calories, meaning a sixer is about 900 calories. It’s possible his alcohol consumption was part of the 5,000 calories a day. But still very few people can consume up to 5,000 calories a day, even if it’s McDonalds and beer.
In the last 10 years, many nutritionists, physicians, and athletic trainers have debunked the myths that you have to consume less food before you exercise. The problem isn’t what you eat but how much of it you eat. In other words, overeating is usually what leads to obesity. More protein is needed if you are exercising. However, the 2,000 calorie a day model isn’t for everyone. It’s even been discarded by many nutritionists as just a number that was chosen out of thin air. Your daily diet and caloric intake is all based on your height, weight, age and even normal activities. Spurlock said he wouldn’t exercise, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t doing basic walking or other strenuous activities such as showering. Spurlock is shown walking a lot, ergo he’s burning calories. He reportedly walked an average of 1.5 miles a day. Also, walking at least 21 minutes a day is better on your heart.
I don’t doubt that there were times during the night as it was shown, he was having issues with his health. But I think his mood swings may have been more alcohol related. Also, the increased intake of meat products from someone who may not have been consuming meat could have a problem. I’m not a doctor. And our bodies all function differently. I remember one time I was at my step-sisters and my nephew came in eating one of those double-down chicken sandwiches from KFC. He was 17-18 at the time if I remember. And he still looked like he weighed a buck-o-five.
People just have different body metabolisms. I’m surprised so many people were duped by this movie into believing that out of the billions of people in the world, one person’s “supposed” side effects were universal. And yes, they say Americans have different ingredients in our foods. So, let’s just say that still one out of 300 million people in the country doesn’t speak for us all. I suspect maybe the McDonald’s Corporations was worried about the publicity. But they still caved to Spurlock which was what his intentions were.
I mean, the guy was dating a restaurant chef. And she probably didn’t work at Applebee’s or Chili’s. He obviously had a beef with just the fast-food industry which had only started to get bad during the Reaganeighties when they resorted to cost-cutting measures on their products. They’ve changed in the last 10 years, they’re still feeding cattle and chicken a lot of corn to fatten them up and then adding supplemental antibiotics so it won’t affect the meat. Price-gouging has actually made McDonald’s and other fast-food industries harder to eat at unless you’re utilizing an offer on an app. Even Wendy’s said they are going to start jacking up the prices during peak periods where they have more customers.
But if Spurlock just thought it was the fast food industry leading to obesity, he was mistaken. Most school districts by 2004 had started renting space in more populated areas for vending machines. Cafeterias started serving food that were higher in calories. Those square pizzas you used to get were replaced by Dominos, Papa Johns and Pizza Hut.
Then when Barack Obama was elected President, as First Lady, Michelle wanted to make the lunches healthier. And that’s when the school officials turned because a black woman was telling white children how to eat. They don’t mind it when a black woman cooks for white children. But they’re damn sure not going to let a black woman tell their white children what to eat. However, if it was Laura Bush or Melania Trump, they would’ve been jumping up and down supporting it.
In the end, Spurlock gained about 24.5 pounds but many doctors and physicians questioned how it could’ve have “pickled” his liver. One of them is even on screen saying his liver looks like that of alcohol abuse. It was right there in front of us. But we didn’t see it. The documentary made over $22 million on a $65,000 budget. Yet, it did little for Spurlock in the long run. He became a one-trick pony who was quickly forgotten in the following years as more and more people questioned his results.
His other films flew under the radar and even his sequel Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken was released in September of 2019 with little fanfare. Spurlock found himself another face of sexual predators like Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and Kevin Spacey during the MeToo Movement. On May 23, he died from complications from cancer. He was 53.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 