Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Shock news !! : McDonald's make you unhealthy

DEADBURGER | 26.01.2004 14:20 | Globalisation | Health | London

LAST February, Morgan Spurlock decided to become a gastronomical guinea pig.
His mission: To eat three meals a day for 30 days at McDonald's and document the impact on his health, He put on 25 pounds but his supersized shape was the least of his problems.
Within a few days of beginning his drive-through diet, Spurlock, 33, was vomiting out the window of his car, and doctors who examined him were shocked at how rapidly Spurlock's entire body deteriorated..

22/01/04

p r e s s c u t t i n g Megan Lehmann

,

New York Post

,

USA

Shock news: McDonald's make you unhealthy

LAST February, Morgan Spurlock decided to become a
gastronomical guinea pig.

His mission: To eat three meals a day for 30 days at
McDonald's and document the impact on his health.

Scores of cheeseburgers, hundreds of fries and dozens of
chocolate shakes later, the formerly strapping 6-foot-2 New
Yorker - who started out at a healthy 185 pounds - had packed on
25 pounds.

But his supersized shape was the least of his problems.

Within a few days of beginning his drive-through diet,
Spurlock, 33, was vomiting out the window of his car, and doctors
who examined him were shocked at how rapidly Spurlock's entire
body deteriorated.

"It was really crazy - my body basically fell apart over the
course of 30 days," Spurlock told The Post.

His liver became toxic, his cholesterol shot up from a low
165 to 230, his libido flagged and he suffered headaches and
depression.

Spurlock charted his journey from fit to flab in a
tongue-in-cheek documentary, which he has taken to the Sundance
Film Festival with the hopes of getting a distribution deal.

"Super Size Me" explores the obesity epidemic that plagues
America today - a sort of "Bowling for Columbine" for fast food.

As well as documenting his own burger-fueled bulk-up,
Spurlock travels to 20 cities across America, interviewing people
on the street, health experts and a lobbyist for the fast-food
industry.

Despite making dozens of phone calls, Spurlock fails to get
anyone from McDonald's to agree to an on-camera interview. A
spokeswoman for McDonald's told The Post yesterday that no
representatives from the corporation had seen "Super Size Me."

"Consumers can achieve balance in their daily dining
decisions by choosing from our array of quality offerings and
range of portion sizes to meet their taste and nutrition goals,"
McDonald's said in a statement.

Over the course of the film, Spurlock is regularly examined
by a gastroenterologist, a cardiologist and SoHo-based general
practitioner Dr. Daryl Isaacs.

"He was an extremely healthy person who got very sick eating
this McDonald's diet," Dr. Isaacs told The Post.

"None of us imagined he could deteriorate this badly - he
looked terrible. The liver test was the most shocking thing - it
became very, very abnormal." Spurlock has since returned to
normal health. "The treatment was to just stop doing what he was
doing," Dr. Isaacs says.

Spurlock, who says he ate at McDonald's only sporadically
before his total immersion in the Mickey D's menu, says he even
began craving fat and sugar fixes between meals.

"I got desperately ill," he says. "My face was splotchy and I
had this huge gut, which I've never had in my life.

"My knees started to hurt from the extra weight coming on so
quickly. It was amazing - and really frightening."

Spurlock's girlfriend, Alex Jamieson, was horrified - she's a
vegan chef.

"She was completely disgusted by me, not happy at all," he
says. "But she realized what my goals were in trying to educate
people." Spurlock, a film producer who grew up in West Virginia
and studied ballet for eight years, was spurred to make his first
feature film while watching TV on Thanksgiving Day, 2002.

"I was feeling like a typical American on Thanksgiving - very
bloated and happy on the couch - and at some point on the news
they were talking about two women who were suing McDonald's.

"People from the food industry were saying, 'You can't link
kids being fat to our food - our food is nutritious.'

"I said, 'How nutritious is it really? Let's find out."

Not surprisingly, Spurlock has steered clear of the Golden
Arches since filming wrapped.

"I have not had McDonald's for seven months, but yesterday,
during an interview, I had a bite of a Big Mac," he says.

"I chewed it up, swallowed it and I said, 'You know what, I'm
pretty much done after that bite.' "

 http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/16393.htm

_____________________________________


---- the McLibel mailing list ----

McDonald's, McLibel, multinationals
 http://www.mcspotlight.org

get on: send blank mail to  list-subscribe@mclibel.org
get off: send blank mail to  list-unsubscribe@mclibel.org
help: send blank mail to  list-help@mclibel.org
human: send meaningful email to  list-owner@mclibel.org
submit: send stuff to  list-submit@mclibel.orgg

DEADBURGER
- e-mail: info@mcspotlight.org
- Homepage: http://www.mcspotlight.org

Comments

Display the following 6 comments

  1. exagerrated — TSG
  2. How it is — /Z/
  3. Twat — Afinkawan
  4. Here's an idea — Dave
  5. Not just boycotts — Josh
  6. Survival of the fittest — Apeinflames
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech