It was an experiment that many documentary filmmakers would have preferred to pass up, but one that a self-confessed attention seeker like Morgan Spurlock was happy to undertake.
“What would happen if I didn’t eat anything but McDonald’s for 30 days straight?” he asked on camera. ‘Would I suddenly be on the fast track to becoming an obese American? Would it be unreasonably dangerous? Let’s find out: I’m ready.’
That did What happened was ‘Super Size Me,’ an Oscar-nominated hit documentary in 2004 that made Spurlock, then 33, an unlikely star and sparked an international debate about the malignant effects of a fixation on fast food.
Spurlock ate at McDonald’s restaurants three times a day, consumed every item they sold at least once, and didn’t eat or drink anything that wasn’t on the menu, or so he claimed.
Whenever the staff offered to increase his share, as they often did, he accepted it. He also exercised less (he walked a maximum of 1.5 miles per day) to match the limited physical activity of the average American.
By the end of the experiment, Spurlock had gained nearly 25 pounds and was suffering from elevated cholesterol levels, depression, sexual dysfunction, fatigue, tremors, and fatty buildup in his liver.
The Oscar-nominated hit documentary in 2004 that made Spurlock, then 33, an unlikely star and sparked an international debate about the malignant effects of a fixation on fast food.
Last week it emerged that Spurlock had died of cancer at the age of 53. But unfortunately his complicated and turbulent past now threatens to overshadow his achievements in exposing the harmfulness of junk food.
‘Super Size Me’ certainly captured the public mood in the United States, a nation where nearly 100 million people (about 60 percent of adults) were at the time overweight or obese.
Created on a budget of just $65,000, the film grossed more than $22 million, led McDonald’s to quietly discontinue its “plus-size” meal option, and made Spurlock a household name.
Last week the news broke that, 20 years after the release of his film, Spurlock had died of cancer at just 53 years old. But unfortunately his complicated and, by his own admission, turbulent past now threatens to overshadow his achievements in exposing the harmfulness of litter. food. An expose he later revealed was not as simple as we were led to believe.
Spurlock’s short life was marked by accusations of sexual misconduct, as well as private struggles with alcoholism, depression and infidelity. Some of which allowed allies of the fast food industry to question its urgent warnings about unhealthy diets.
In fact, shortly after the film’s release, questions arose as to whether Spurlock had been playing entirely fair.
Critics noted how he had repeatedly ignored his nutritionist’s advice that his fast-food diet provided him with 5,000 calories a day when he only needed half that.
Spurlock was accused of gorging for the sake of it, to the point that McDonald’s responded that such overconsumption of any food would have had the same consequences no matter where someone ate.
Then, in 2009, the documentary ‘Fat Head’ appeared, in which comedian and health writer Tom Naughton questioned the accuracy of Spurlock’s calorie and fat statistics, pointing out his refusal to publish the food log he kept while making ‘Super Size Me’.
In another anti-Spurlock documentary, ‘Me & Mickey D’, filmmaker Soso Whaley claimed that he actually lost weight and reduced his cholesterol while copying Spurlock’s McDonald’s diet; It’s just that he exercised regularly and didn’t consume more than he normally felt like eating.
And then there was the matter of Spurlock’s weakened liver.
One of the most impressive and memorable moments of ‘Super Size Me’ came when the doctors monitoring him warned him to abandon his experiment after blood tests showed that his liver had quickly become so damaged that it looked as if he were ‘ pickled’. with excessive alcohol consumption.
His liver looked like “that of an alcoholic after a binge,” one doctor said.
Shortly after the film’s release, questions arose as to whether Spurlock had been playing completely fair.
However, in 2006, a Swedish university made headlines after replicating Spurlock’s experiment under laboratory conditions and finding that the changes in the liver “weren’t even dangerous.”
It wasn’t until 2017 that we learned the truth, as documentary doctors’ comparisons to the effects of excessive alcohol consumption proved too accurate: Spurlock finally admitted that he may not have religiously stuck to the menu after all. McDonald’s during filming, and that he had been drinking alcohol excessively.
The confession came in December of that year and saw Spurlock resign from his production company after publishing a stunningly candid #MeToo mea-blame blog post, titled ‘I’m Part of the Problem’, in which he revealed his own sexual misconduct on the past, as well as his alcoholism.
He said he had been accused of rape in college (which he denied, although he admitted that both parties were drunk) and that he had settled a sexual harassment allegation made within his own production company eight years earlier.
“I would call my assistant ‘shorts’ or ‘sex pants’ when I yelled at her from across the office,” he said. “Something I thought was funny at the time, but then I realized that he had completely degraded and belittled her to a place of non-existence.”
Spurlock, who as of 2017 had been married three times and had two children from different wives, was clearly in a confessional mood as he also admitted to serial “infidelity.”
He said he had been “unfaithful to every wife and girlfriend I’ve ever had”, adding: “Over the years, I would look them in the eye and proclaim my love and then have sex with other people behind their backs.” .
He was “someone who constantly hurts the people closest to me,” including family, friends and colleagues, she said.
Seeking answers to why this was the case, he confessed that he had been sexually abused as a child and teenager, abuse that he had only told his first wife “for fear of being seen as weak.” He also blamed his father for abandoning his mother when he was a child.
Spurlock finally admitted in 2017 that he may not have religiously stuck to the McDonald’s menu during filming after all and had been drinking alcohol to excess.
The confession caused Spurlock to resign from his production company after publishing a surprisingly candid #MeToo mea-culpa blog post in which he revealed his own past sexual misconduct, as well as his alcoholism. (Pictured with his second wife, Alex, in 2008).
He said he had been accused of rape in college, something he denied, and that he had resolved a sexual harassment allegation made within his own production company. He also acknowledged his serial “infidelity.”
“Or is it because I’ve been drinking constantly since I was 13?” He asked himself. “I haven’t been sober for more than a week in 30 years, something our society neither rejects nor condemns, but it only served to fill the emotional void inside me and the daily depression I suffered from.”
The post effectively ended his career overnight: within days, YouTube backed out on a distribution deal to release ‘Super Size Me 2,’ and all of his other film and television projects went out of print.
But it was the alcohol revelations that angered fans the most.
Spurlock, who entered rehab because his business was imploding, admitted to being drunk almost the entire time he was making ‘Super Size Me.’ It was a fact that he could very well explain the accumulation of fat in his liver, not to mention the tremors he reported.
Her confessional post also made it clear that her “depression” predated filming.
And yet, despite everything, he expressly told a doctor on camera that he was not drinking alcohol at the time.
Spurlock declined to comment further on the matter, leaving some wondering what else he might have lied about.
His film survives him and is still often used as an educational aid in high school health classes. But perhaps, like the 590-calorie Big Mac, it should come with a caveat.