Supersized Sensationalism

STATUS: Under, in, and around the weather

Music: Heavy Fuel by Dire Straits

Sensationalist documentaries are all the thing these days and, like many people, I enjoy watching them. Michael Moore, of course, is the dominant producer in this field with Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, etc., but there are others, like Morgan Spurlock and his Supersize Me! documentary on fast food, that also catch the zeitgeist.

I enjoy watching these movies as much as the next person. They're slick, at least somewhat informative and they make you think. Although they don't always make people think as they should. Because these movies tend to reinforces the zeitgeist of their target audience, that same audience tends not to think much beyond what has been suggested in the movie.

Now, I'm not going to go political here, and explore Michael Moore's movies. That kind of discuss would be for another time and place (incidentally, I tend to support the ideas of his movies, even if/when I believe I can see the motivational logic of the other side). But I'd like to take a far simpler, and less controversial example. Namely, Supersize Me! by Morgan Spurlock.

In Supersize Me! Spurlock goes on a very sensationalized eating routine to explore the effects of eating fast food. He eats 3 meals a day (breakfast, lunch, dinner) at McDonalds. Rules are that all food he eats for the month must be sold at McDonalds, he must have everything on the menu over the course of the month, and he must supersize the meal if asked. Without going through the details, the results from this 5000 calories/day experiment were weight gane of 24.5 lbs in the month, increase body fat, and a host of related health issues. Definitely suggesting fast food is bad for you.

Only, does it?

I'm ashamed to say that I didn't really question this movie much until I watched a Penn & Teller's Bullshit episode on fast food recently. There was an especially interesting psychological experiment highlighting how people perceive food from fast food restaurants as worse than food from normal restaurants even, as in the example in their show, when the food is exactly the same (briefly: food from Taco Bell and KFC were passed off as food from a Bistro, people responded favourable to the 'Bistro' food, but not when they knew it was fast food).

So, returning to Supersize Me! I think Spurlock is addressing an important point. But I don't think it's the one he has intended. To me, the real point revolves around eating at restaurants in general and that we are very bad at estimating how much we're eating when we eat out. But to demonstrate this I'd like to see the full experiment completed. What's needed is 30 days eating only at a 'normal', non-fast food, non-specialist restaurant to compare to the results of eating at a fast food restaurant.

A restaurant that serves all three meals. Rules:

1) a 'non-specialist', middle-class family restaurant that serves a variety of food
2) 3 full meals a day from the restaurant for 30 days
3) only food from the restaurant is eaten for the month
4) if options are offered, they must be accepted (i.e. starters, desert, coffee, etc.)

My personal suspicions are that any person attempting this would gain a similar amount of weight and weight-related issues, just as with fast food. After all, 'good food' is often as caloric (or even more so) than fast food. And they're always getting you to buy starters or deserts (we rarely do, but they always ask). So I suspect Mr. Spurlock would be in for another unhealth month if he tried his experiment at a 'normal' restaurant.

And perhaps people would come to understand that the real reason not to eat fast food 3 times a day is that it's deceptively expensive! We believe it's cheap because we're constantly told that. But, while you might be able to feed a family of four with a fast food supper on $20 (if you get a meal deal), you could easily feed a normal family of four for an entire day on $20, all three meals. So the real problem with fast food is that people forget it's is eating at a restaurant. Most normal families would not eat at a restaurant for three meals a day. It would be too expensive. Same with fast food.

Insight and longevity