What is obesity? Dctionary.com states that “Obesity is a medical condition in which a person has excess body fat or being overweight; corpulence" therefore an obese person puts them self at risk for major health problems.” The movie Super-Size Me directed and written by Morgan Spurlock sheds light on the fast food market and the obesity crisis in the United States. His compelling experiment brings to light the physical and emotional impact of consuming three square meals per day at McDonalds for thirty days. Several lawsuits were filed against McDonald’s restaurant for knowingly selling food that is very unhealthy. To substantiate the claim proof was required to show that eating McDonald’s everyday can be dangerous and affects the human body.
For instance, there are more McDonalds in Manhattan than anywhere else in the world. The city of Manhattan is only thirteen miles long, by two miles wide, and there are eighty three fast food locations which is nearly four stores per square mile. Also there is more McDonald’s location than Kentucky Fry Chicken, Popeye’s, Taco Bell and Wendy’s combined in Manhattan. Another thing that stood out to me in the documentary is that McDonald’s spent over 1.4 billion dollars on advertisements and Pepsi spent 1 billion dollars on direct advertising, Hersey candy spent 200 million dollars and the five a day fruit and vegetable campaign spent 2 million dollars on advertisements. The fast food industry impacts Americans because we spend a lot of money on it which most of the food is very unhealthy. In the movie, its states that 45 percent of families will go out to eat fast food instead of cooking at home. If customers start to eat at home and save their money, the big companies will reduce their prices on products. They will also increase their marketing strategies and advertisements to lure one to start purchasing again. Certainly the onus is not to be swayed by their strategies of lowering cost thinking it is a great deal for our money. The important factor is one 's
McDonald's is one of the multiple fast food restaurants that serve greasy and oversized meals that are harmful to the human body. Throughout a thirty day McDonald's only diet, Spurlock surrounds himself with logos, ethos, and pathos to impact the viewer's opinion on the true cost of eating fast food
Morgan Spurlock decided to make this documentary to investigate the fast food companies, and the effects of certain fast food chains products, particularly McDonalds, on the health of society. This Documentary explores the United States growing epidemic of obesity and diabetes as well. Morgan decides to eat nothing but McDonald's food for thirty days. He must eat one of everything on the menu at least once, and when asked to super size his meal he must do so. Another stipulation of Morgan's experiment is that he can only take 5,000 steps a day to replicate the exercise that most average Americans get on a daily basis. He must also eat three meals a day, no exceptions and if McDonalds doesn't serve it Morgan can't eat it.
Throughout the film, various companies are exposed for promoting products in a manner that depicts the products as a healthy alternative. The ultimate exposing is done on the government and the USDA. The government is exposed for making deals with food companies to not demonize companies that sell unhealthy food. Even Michelle Obama 's "Let 's Move" campaign against childhood obesity started out bringing unhealthy companies to the light but died down by emphasizing exercise and not talking about food.This is largely in part due to a deal made with major corporations who weren’t too pleased with the original approach of “Let’s Move”. In addition, the USDA is exposed for promoting products such as cheese, milk, and high fructose corn syrup in a fictional way. They provided no information that they were unhealthy in the
Obesity in the United States, which the media has labeled a national crisis, has also been connected to poverty rates. Big fast food industry’s target poor communities, and spend millions of dollars each year to create advertising that appeals to these specific areas. These industry’s also target naïve children when advertising because they know that eating habits developed in childhood are usually carried into adulthood. Children who are exposed to television advertisements for unhealthy food and who are not educated well enough on good nutrition will grow up and feed their families the same unhealthy foods they ate as kids. A big way fast food giants are able to make certain young people have access to unhealthy food is by strategically placing franchises in close proximity to schools. They will often place three times as many outlets within walking distance of schools than in areas where there are no schools nearby. The way fast food advertising is targeted towards children is very alarming considering how important good nutrition is for young people and how a child’s eating habits can affect their growth and
Common causes of obesity can be excessive caloric intake, thyroid disorders, lack of physical activity, genes, medicines, emotions, smoking, age, and pregnancy. The combination of calorie restriction and exercise seems to be more effective rather than either one alone. Sticking to a weight
People sometimes don't even know what they eat and what the possible outcome, obesity, is. According to Carla Power's article, fast food is food “…high in fat, sugar and salt" ("Big Trouble"). One meal of fast food alone has almost enough calories you need for the day. Paul Schwartzman’s article claims that fast food is “…ready-to-consume food," and "customer queing" (“Defining 'Fast Food' Is Slow Work”). People are either just clueless about what is in that food or they just don’t think that one meal will affect their body that much. Jenni Laidman's article defines obesity as being at "a body mass index of 30 or above (about 198 pounds for someone 5'8)" or just being "overweight" ("Fat City"). For you, this should be a special indicator of what really goes into your body and what obesity is classified as being.
The United States is the fattest nation in the world. Obesity has become an epidemic among society. The main contributor to obesity in America is the abundant number of fast food restaurants and lack of exercise. Eating Fast food is very unhealthy and will effect someone’s long term health. In his film Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock’s job is to go on a 30 day McDonalds’ binge to show the effects of eating large amounts of fast food. During the film, Spurlock stresses three main factors of the obesity epidemic. The three main factors of obesity stressed in the film Super Size Me are the health problems associated with eating large amounts of fast food, food being served in schools, and the advertisement of fast food restaurants.
The United States of America has long been considered a “big nation”, whether is has the biggest cities, houses, and on a negative note, biggest people. In 2003, Morgan Spurlock, a healthy-bodied film director, set on a quest to show America the detrimental effects of the fast food industry and raise awareness on the controversial issue. He produced the documentary “Supersize Me”, where McDonald’s meals were consumed for every meal of the day for thirty days. His film was released to movie theatres so that people could understand the devastating effects of McDonald’s on his body in a very short time span. At the end of his experiment, Morgan gained twenty-five pounds, developed a thirteen percent body mass increase, cholesterol skyrocketed immensely, and fat accumulation in his liver rose to. He became depressed and he only felt happy and in no pain when he was eating the fast food. By using ethos, logos, and pathos, “Supersize Me” became one of the most watched documentaries in the United States. Without these appeals, this documentary would not have developed the effect that it did.
Eating habits have become a cause of obesity because most people in America decide to take the fast route. Fast food has become so prevalent in the day to day lives of so many families and individuals. The cost and convenience of fast food has led to an increase in consumption, which does not help our cause. According to Carey Polis’ article in The Huffington Post, fast food is about $550 cheaper per year than choosing the healthy option. That means people are more likely to choose a cheeseburger from McDonald’s over fresh fruit and vegetables from the produce section at the grocery store. Along with how cheap it is to get our hands on fast food, the convenience makes it even more difficult to resist. With a fast food restaurant on every corner of every block in town, it makes it much easier for someone to pick up on a meal on their daily commute rather than actually trying to cook something healthy. Choosing fast food is not the most nutritious way to go either. Fast food is filled with sugar, fats, salts, and calories. It is usually low in nutrition and high in what are considered to be “empty” calories. By definition obesity is caused by the excess in...
Fast food restaurants such as Burger King and McDonald’s, create advertisements where it urges people to consume their product. For example Mcdonald’s created a product where you can get two items such as a mcdouble and a medium fries for three dollars. According to “The battle against fast food begins at home”, by Daniel Weintraub, it shows how companies are intriguing their customers. “ The center blames the problem on the increasing consumption of fast food and soft drinks, larger portion sizes in restaurants and the amount of available on school campuses”(1).For the most part, the Center for Public Health believes that fast food companies are the problem for health
America has always been about being the biggest nation: the biggest houses, the biggest cars, biggest cities and unfortunately the biggest bodies. There is no doubt that fast food is causing major health problems for many Americans today. In his documentary, Super Size Me, released in 2004 Morgan Spurlock decides to eat only food from McDonald’s for thirty days to see how it would affect his health. Spurlock starts out healthier than the average man for his age. Throughout the film, we can see that his health gradually degenerates and reaches a critical point, before his thirty days are over. Super Size Me is very persuasive in showing the negative effect in fast food restaurants by using logos, pathos, and ethos.
In the documentary “Supersize Me” by Morgan Spurlock, America’s obesity issue was exposed and pinpointed at one of the giant contributor and fast food marketer “McDonald's”. Throughout the documentary, many rhetorical devices were utilized to provide reasons as to how America’s obesity issue is dangerous and how Mcdonald's and major food companies contribute to this disaster in the American society. Drastic continuance of unhealthy eating habits on top of an increasingly growing population calls for an alarm to everyone. He then stresses the dangers of obesity and addresses the issue’s cause. Morgan creates a strong visual and effective argument that eating fast food is the key reason to America’s obesity issue.
Director Morgan Spurlock was present all throughout the documentary Super Size Me (Morgan Spurlock, 2004.) Morgan Spurlock was the centerpiece to this puzzle of a documentary. Morgan Spurlock was included in almost every scene. The film focused on the body's reaction to consuming nothing but Mcdonald's for 30 days, and the director was involved in the whole experiment. There is no star bigger than the director in this mid 2000’s documentary, other recurring characters include his girlfriend (Alex Jamieson) and the doctors that helped him along the way. The way Morgan Spurlock conducts this documentary is very interesting, he was involved in mostly everything hands on. He interviewed people, asked doctors for questions,
Super-Size Me showed how one of the most popular fast food restaurants around today may be leading future generations to severe health problems. First, my personal reaction to this documentary is an eye opener. I knew McDonalds was more harmful than other fast food places, but I never knew about the lawsuit between McDonalds and its consumers. I never saw McDonalds as having a big impact on my life; this is probably because the McDonald’s in my hometown never had a super-size option. In the video, Spurlock conducted interviews to gain multiple perspectives on what kind of people eat McDonald’s food.... ...
According to the National Institute of Health, the most familiar causes of obesity can be categorized into four causes; lifestyle, environmental, hereditary and medical causes2. However, the main cause of obesity worldwide is still unhealthy diets.