Carter,

Nicolas Carter

Dr. DiSarro

ENG 101-OL03

Friday, July 18

Supersize America

Fast food rains across America everywhere you look you can see fast food restaurants.

Fast food is food that can be prepared quickly and easily and is sold in fast food restaurants such

as McDonalds (Yale ). According to f.a.c.t.s. (Food Advertising to Children and Teenagers

Score), in 2012 the fast food industry spent $4.6 billion to advertise, on the contrary, other

industries such as the fruit and vegetable industries have only spent $116 million on advertising

(Yale ). Furthermore, a recent article mentioned that eating fast food has health concerns and

have been linked to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes (Sheehan ). In the movie Supersize Me,

actor/director Morgan Spurlock conducts an unscientific experiment using himself as the guinea

pig. He eats only McDonald's for thirty days, three meals a day. Also, if the clerk asks Spurlock

if he would like the meal supersized he has to say yes, but there is more to it than just that.

Supersize Me is a movie about American pop culture and fast food, it is directed towards

Americans and Spurlock wants the viewer to understand how what they eat affects them and

makes himself the example.

Supersize Me is an investigative documentary that investigates and explores the effects of

fast foods, in particular McDonalds. The documentary not only investigates but also educates the

audience, specifically Americans, young people and generally fast food eaters about obesity and

the affects of regularly eating fast food. Supersize Me was created in an expositional mode,

allowing the audience to see the first-hand effects and thus it cannot be blamed or excused by

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other factors. This kind of approach gives Spurlock more creditability with the audience. The

documentary also features other stylistic devices such as data, montages, facts and statistics,

archival footage and formal interviews in order to make the aim of Supersize Me more prominent

in order for any changes it provokes to be more significant. For example, the documentary

begins with a montage of archival footage of obesity in America. Along with the presenter,

Morgan Spurlock narrating facts and statistics about obesity within the United States, calling it

the” fattest nation in the world”. This provides the audience with the shock factor over this

extremely negative portrait of America, which further engages them into these statistics

surrounding obesity. The movie then follows the people Spurlock finds on the street outside of

McDonalds or other fast food outlets. The majority of those interviewed confessed to regularly

eating fast food and argued against it being morally wrong for McDonalds to be forcing such

unhealthy food upon society. To then provide evidence and back up the statement that

McDonalds is contributing to obesity within society. The documentary featured a graphic of the

United States, which showed the correlation between the ‘fattest’ states and the number of

McDonalds within that state. The city that has the most obese Americans and the most

McDonalds is Detroit (Sheehan ). Spurlock then explains that the poorest areas of are country

have the most McDonalds. Spurlock engages the audience with many statistical facts that he

forces the audience to pay attention.

Spurlock communicates to the viewers effectively by showing statistical graphs and

information that are enforced by his creditability. Throughout the documentary we also see

several professionals and experts featured in formal interviews. These begin to show a more

positive aspect of American society. For example Jacob Sullum, the senior editor of reason

magazine argues that people should be tackling obesity as they do for tobacco. Other experts are

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shown discussing their efforts in trying to tackle obesity or those who disagree with the way in

which fast food companies are taking over people’s diets. This is a more positive portrayal of

American society as it highlights that so many people are trying to fight for healthy diets and

lifestyles. However the documentary also features an interview with Gene Grabowski, who

states, “we are part of the problem”. This shows a lack of consideration for American society as

he admits they know they are helping to cause serious health problems, however their main

priority is not the health, safety and well-being of their customers but the profits in which the

unhealthy food is bringing them. The type of communicating method that Spurlock employs is

that he shows by example. Specifically, he shows the audience what consuming fast food is

doing to his body making him more credible this way. He chooses this approach and as a result

he showed the audience that it was not a gimmick. One of the most important features in this

movie is the schema since this allowed the audience to get a first person glimpse. Furthermore,

he approaches this by facing, talking to the camera and gives the viewer the sensation of being

there. Similarly Spurlock would go and visit the doctor and as he was talking to him he would

also explain to the camera what was happening. Overall the prime rhetorical appeal in the film is

communicator (ethos), since Supersize Me is a documentary this is a big aspect.

Torts the end of the movie Spurlock message was clear fast food over all was just plane

bad for you. Spurlock tells the audience how he feels at the end of 30 days of eating fast food

and tells the audience how he feels, Spurlock and his doctor describe that the fast food is not

only making him feel terrible its actually killing him. The movie portrayed Spurlock as the good

guy and fast food corporation’s evil. Another reason why this documentary was so affective at

convaying its message is because Spurlock for 30 days eat only fast food and gave you a first

hand look how what it was doing to his body causing some one starting off being very healthy

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became very sick and fat. A take home message is that eating super sized food will make you

supersized. A limitation of his message is that the audience for this movie is not broad and that

people who eat fast food will more likely not watch this movie. In fact, people who eat fast food

are in denial and probably would not want to see what is happening to Spurlock because they

don’t want to know what will happen to them. Furthermore, young adults who eat fast food more

than twice a week gained 10 more pounds than those who eat food once a week (Sheehan).

Additionally, soft drinks are often sold with high calorie fast food and this has been linked to

severe diabetes (Sheehan).

To summarize, fast food is a false positive solution to the American peoples high caliber

lifestyle. Meals should be prepared with nutrition in mind rather then speed. Supersize Me has

addressed such an issue by formatting a documentary that is accessible to many types of

audience. With this in mind, Supersize Me has enabled a new form of communication amongst

viewers surrounding the dark side of fast food. Furthermore, childhood education on nutrition is

becoming increasingly relevant in light of the rising obesity rates as well as other shocking

statistics of this nature as seen in the documentary, Supersize Me.

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Work cited

Sheehan, Jan. "Fast Food Health Risk Facts." Healthy Eating. Hearst Communications, Inc., 2014. Web. 23 July 2014.

Yale. "Fast Food FACTS in Brief." Fast Food FACTS — Fast Food Facts in Brief. Rudd Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson, 2013. Web. 22 July 2014.

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