Template:Featured film (Week 36, 2006)



Super Size Me is a 2004 documentary film, directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, an independent U.S. filmmaker. It follows a period in which he eats only McDonald's fast food, three times a day, every day, for thirty days—and stops exercising regularly—and it documents the physical and psychological effects this has upon him. In addition, Spurlock explores the corporate influence of the fast food industry and how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit.

Spurlock, age 33, was healthy and slim, with a body mass of 185.5 lb (84.1 kg). Spurlock's height is 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m). After thirty days, he gained 24.5 lb (11.1 kg), an increase of 13% of his body mass. He also experienced mood swings, sexual dysfunction, and nearly catastrophic liver damage. It took several months to lose the weight he gained and return to normal.

The driving factor for Spurlock's investigation was the increasing spread of obesity throughout U.S. society, which the Surgeon General has declared "epidemic", and the corresponding lawsuit brought against McDonald's on behalf of two overweight girls, who, it was claimed, became obese as a result of eating too much McDonald's food.

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