SUPER SIZE ME

A couple years back, two American teenage girls sued the McDonald's corporation, blaming them for their obesity problem. As scoff-worthy as this suit was, Morgan Spurlock, a young, healthy, and fit filmmaker thought that maybe there was something to their complaint. McDonald's claimed that everyone knows that their food is not necessarily good for you, and should be supplemented with a balanced diet. But in the meantime, their advertising pressures More! More! More! with their bombardment of special calorie-packed Meal Deals, and the lure of "super sizing it" for a mere few extra cents.

So Morgan Spurlock, under supervision of doctors, nutritionists, cardiologists, and other health experts, went on a strict McDonald's diet for 30 days, just to see if the food was really as bad for you as McDonald's denies that it is. Among his rules: he had to eat three meals a day, he had to try everything at least once, and he could only eat things found on the menu. When his dietician begs him to take a daily diet supplement, he says, "But McDonald's doesn't sell vitamins."

Throwing around facts and figures to illustrate his points, and interviewing people on all sides of the debate (including man-on-the-street interviews, asking the unanswerable question, "What is a calorie?"), Morgan Spurlock comes across as more than a little bit Michael Moore. But Spurlock somehow seems guileless and less calculated, as his experiment proves to be more dangerous than he and his doctors thought possible.

All of this is interesting in its own right, but what makes Super Size Me a pleasure to watch is that it is actually freakin' hilarious while it educates. When Spurlock scarfs down his first Super Size meal, we get a minute by minute report on how he's doing. "I'm getting the McSweats," he complains, "I'm getting the McShakes... I'm feeling McQueasy..." he moans. Then at minute 22, post-meal, we get to enjoy the site of him leaning out his car window and vomiting up his whole Full Meal Deal.

But for all the humor, there is a sobering message about the obesity problem in this country, and, increasingly, in the rest of the world. In the film, the interview that really broke my heart was of an obese young woman who had just listened to Jared-from-Subway's inspirational talk about losing weight through a Subway diet. The woman looks crestfallen, admits that she's "tried everything" to lose weight. "But I can't afford to go to Subway twice a day!" she cries, as though her last chance at a cure-all is gone. If that doesn't illustrate the problem with America's view towards eating well and living a healthy lifestyle, I don't know what does.