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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.
