One of the best movies from last year, along with Napoleon Dynamite and Fahrenheit 9-11 was Morgan Spurlock's documentary Super Size Me. The film looks at fast food, obesity and eating habits of today's American population. Spurlock blames fast food restaurants in general for the ever expanding waistlines in society, but spotlights the food and marketing of McDonald's. He put himself on a 30 day diet of nothing but food from the golden arches for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He had 3 doctors charting his health throughout the experiment, and even the doctors were surprised at the effect of the food on his body. It's an interesting piece of work which spawned a book by Spurlock titled Don't Eat this Book. Here are some interesting quotes from that work;
"Obesity related illnesses will kill 400,000 Americans in 2005-almost as many as smoking."
"It takes seven hours of straight walking to burn off a supersized Coke, fries, and Big Mac."
"Most nutritionists recommend not eating fast food more than once a month"
I know personally how fast food can pack on the pounds. I lost 40 pounds, and I give much of the credit for that weight loss to eliminating fast food from my diet. I used to eat it 4-5 times per week.
Here's an especially disturbing quote from Spurlock's book-
"You want to hear something really disgusting? The cattle industry buys millions of dead cats and dogs from animal shelters every year, then feeds them to the cattle who end up in your burger. Oh, and they do the same with roadkill."
Doesn't that make you want to go get a meal at McDonald's, Burger King or Wendy's?
