McDonald's Victims
The Times lauds a new film:
"The summer's first break-out indie hit looks to be Super Size Me, a $300,000 documentary shot on video by Morgan Spurlock about his experiment of eating nothing but McDonald's fast food for a month. This "tongue-in-cheek and burger-in-hand"� film became the most talked-about movie at the Sundance film festival earlier this year.
The statistics it rolls out are sobering, even to anyone who has read Fast Food Nation. Two in five children and two in three adults now suffer from obesity in America. One in ten develops diabetes. People who develop the disease before the age of 17 lose on average 17-27 years of their life. Perhaps the most shocking sight is the serving of fast food in school canteens to waddling teenagers.
Spurlock’s own regimen offers graphic proof of the drawbacks of fast food. During his one month of McDonald’s, he piled on 25lb (11.3kg), developed headaches and depression, lost his sex drive and turned his liver into “pâté”.
Whereas the far more sensible Soso Whaley has also made a film about living on McDonalds food for a month.
She says she lost 13 pounds and never felt hungry.
- Whaley feels that some of Spurlock’s arguments are unfair. For instance, McDonalds is not trying to trick anyone with the caloric content of their menu, as nutritional information is readily available. Spurlock apparently also makes a case against McDonalds specifically targeting children. Whaley says that McDonalds is no different from any other place, and that it is hypocritical to say that McDonalds doing so is a bad thing. She says that the McDonalds Play Places give kids a chance for some exercise, and an opportunity to be social with other kids.
- From the press release, Whaley was surprised at the uproar over Spurlock’s film. “I can’t believe all the attention over Morgan Spurlock’s ‘Super Size Me’ film. All He did was eat like a pig to make his point.”
But I guess no one is going to listen to her - Big Nasty American Corporations are EVIL.....