Life in the Fast Lane...

Kwame Newton
Mr. Priest (Great Books)
14 October 2008
Supersize…Me?
Supersize Me was a very interesting documentary. Before I started watching it, I didn’t know what to expect. I knew that the “guinea pig” would experience adverse side effects, but I did not expect them to be as bad as they were. I was also not expecting the film to address the issues of corporate responsibility and school lunch programs.
I’m not exactly sure what I thought would happen to Morgan Spurlock (the “guinea pig”), but I had a pretty good feeling that it would not be anything good. The massive (relatively speaking) amount of weight gain was expected, but what I did not expect were all of the other changes that occurred.
Spurlock, before the documentary, was a healthy person with a healthy weight and healthy vital signs. This did not surprise me; a diet like the one he ate would do that to anybody. The excessive amount of calories is not the only thing bad about McDonald’s’ food. The ingredients used are of low-grade quality and, in my opinion, are not fit for human consumption. An experiment was conducted, again by Spurlock, that tested something else. He put McDonald’s food and non-fast food in containers and left them to decay. Within one week all of the normal food had decayed. The McDonald’s food took at least two weeks, with the exception of the BigMac. The BigMac took 5 weeks to decay significantly! This could only mean that something, aside from the lipid and caloric content, is wrong with McDonald’s food. The food is generally disgusting and putrid. I hate it, just like I hate the devil.
Another experiment was produced, this time in Sweden. College students at Linköping University were subjected to a 6000 calorie a day diet; this is about 1000 calories more than Spurlock’s. The difference, however, was that they were not eating food from McDonald’s. They were given high-calorie shakes at bedtime if they did not eat enough during the day. At the end of the 30-day experiment, they gained 5-15% weight, and ALT levels were elevated. Their livers also showed some damage. The damage was never close to dangerous, as was Spurlock’s. This should definitely say something.