Adventure Forums - "Super Size Me", please!

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Originally Posted by Bastich

The problem with his experiment is that it is biased from the start. One could create plenty of home cooked meals that are just as bad, if not worse for you than McDonalds and who would they blame then? It's not like McDonalds corners the market on their ingredients. Is anyone surprised that eating excessive amounts of crappy food every meal of every day is bad for you? What does that have to do with fast food when no one forces anyone to eat at those places?

I agree that this endeavor was fixed from the start. But I don't think that it was Morgan Spurlock's specific goal to shove the entire weight of responsibility on McDonald's. His idea was to "...[explore] the obesity epidemic that plagues America today - a sort of 'Bowling for Columbine' for fast food...." McDonald's just happened to be one of the most non-peripheral co-conspirators of this phenomenon, he could easily have chosen other establishents, like Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Burger King, or Taco Bell. His point was to make a film as commentary on this issue, and he chose one of the more dramatic (thereby more convincing?) approaches to it, that is, eating nothing but junk for a month.

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This film is just one more thing that people will use to absolve responsibility for their own actions. People are fat because they don't exercise and eat poorly. Restaurants have nothing to do with their poor choices.

You need to realize that everyone - restaurants, individual consumers, and government - contributes to this. Stating that "people are fat because they don't exercise and eat poorly" may be plausible, but that view is short-sighted, it's only one part of addressing the entire issue. The fact is that this way of food consumption has become a standard cultural and social norm, not just in the U.S. but also in many other developed countries like Britain and France:

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The World Health Organization last year said obesity is no longer mostly an American problem but is an increasing concern in Europe and other developed nations because people are abandoning traditional dietary habits and adopting more sedentary lifestyles.

Countries with some of the heaviest youngsters after the United States, based on data from 15-year-olds, were:

• Greece: 5.5 percent of girls were obese and about 16 percent were overweight; nearly 11 percent of boys were obese and almost 29 percent were overweight.

• Portugal: nearly 7 percent of girls were obese and almost 21 percent were overweight; about 5 percent of boys were obese and 14 percent were overweight.

• Israel: about 6 percent of girls were obese and 16 percent were overweight; nearly 7 percent of boys were obese and 20 percent were overweight;

• Ireland: nearly 5 percent of girls were overweight and 14 percent were overweight; almost 3 percent of boys were obese and 19 percent were overweight.

• Denmark: 6.5 percent of girls were obese and 18 percent were overweight; about 3 percent of boys were obese and 10 percent were overweight.

International survey: Fattest teens in U.S., cnn.com

It's become a vicious cycle. Many consumers choose to lead lives that leave little room - i.e. time - for preparing more healthful meals and eating habits. Many parents, for example, work long hours, leaving their kids to mind themselves. Naturally the kids will turn to junk food (which demands no time consuming preparation) because mom and dad aren't around to otherwise cook something nutritious and healthful.

This of course justifies fast food chains' desire to capitalize by offering convenient foods (at the expense of healthiness) at any time of the day:

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I am often asked why the food industry produces so many products that can undermine health. The answer is simple. Because people buy them. Any food item that does not sell soon disappears from the marketplace. The industry supplies what consumers demand. If more people eating fast food choose salads over fries, the salad choices in those establishments will increase.

The Widening of America, or How Size 4 Became a Size 0, The New York Times

In the U.S., the government (alongside parents, corporations, and individuals) should also share some of the responsibilities. Because of severe federal and state budget cuts in the education sector (while Bush spends billions on trying to send astronauts to Mars), schools had to cut back on certain programs like physical education classes, and increasingly rely on alternative forms of income, mainly soft drink companies paying them to install vending machines full of soda pop and junk food at school campuses.

And of particular importance: fat Americans are expensive and high maintenance! Although I don't have the statistics at hand atm, obesity is costing us millions of dollars in healthcare costs. Fat people are far more prone to problems like diabetes and of course, heart disease. It costs a crapload of money to take care of them.

EDIT: :D Um, sorry, I didn't mean to ramble, but this whole obesity phenomenon I find really fascinating. I've been keeping tabs on it, reading news articles, etc.