I just watched this absolutely disgusting film. I know that these facts do not and will not apply to everyone, but the facts are the facts. Fast food is poison, it is as addictive as any drug, and it is meant to be.
Some of the facts are outdated and some of the more disgusting ones have been bolded.
Please take a minute or two to read over these facts, and try not to get sick.
Super Size Me: The facts
from the film.
(this movie came out in 2004 and the stats have only gotten worse in the past decade)
q America
is the fattest nation in the world. Over 100 million Americans are overweight
or obsess. 60% of all US adults are overweight or obsess.
q Mississippi
is the fattest state in the nation.(it is now Alabama: It has an obesity rate of 31.2 percent)
q Since
1980 to the present, the amount of children who are obese has doubled. Obesity
is now second only to smoking as a major cause of preventable death in America
with over 400,000 preventable illnesses related to obesity each year.
q More
and more Americans are eating out which leads to bigger waistlines as well. One
in four Americans visits a fast-food restaurant.
q Mc
Donald’s alone has 30,000 joints in 100 countries on 6 continents. It serves
over 46 million worldwide each day. That is more people than the entire country
of Spain. Mc Donald’s is 43% of the fast
food market. Mc Donald’s is everywhere: in malls, airports, and even in
hospitals.
q Morgan
Spurlock, the star of the film, wanted to find out what would happen to his
body if he ate nothing but Mc Donald’s for 30 days.
q Sixty-percent
of Americans get no exercise at all and lead a completely sedentary lifestyle.
Most Americans walk no more than 5,000 steps a day. The average New Yorker,
however, walks 4-5 miles a day.
q There
are 83 Mc Donald’s in New York City within 22.4 square miles. That means there
are 4 per square mile.
q The
small size soda in the US is the big size in France.
q The
rules for Morgan Spurlock in Super Size Me are:
1. Only
super-size when asked
2. Only
eat things from Mc Donald’s
3. Have
to have everything on the menu at least once over the next 30 days
4. Must
have 3 square meals a day
q Americans
eat out 40% of our meals. That’s a lot.
q Mc
Donald’s works to appeal to kids with a number of tricks:
- The Mc Donald’s playgrounds. For some communities that don’t have parks, the playgrounds at Mc Donald’s are the only place to take your kid to play.
- Birthday parties children can have at Mc Donald’s.
- Happy Meals appeal to kids
- Ronald Mc Donald, the clown.
q Obesity
is a national epidemic.
q The
federal government says that 3 oz of meat is a serving size. Most restaurants
serve 4 to 5 times that amount.
q One
bagel = five pieces of bread and is between 500-600 calories.
q The
original size of fries was 200 calories. A large size fries is 600 calories.
q At
Burger King, a 12 oz drink used to be a small. Now it is considered
kiddie-size.
q Cars
have introduced different cup holders for the Double Big Gulps, which are a ½
gallon of soda and are between 600-800 calories depending on how much ice is in
them.
q Toxic
food and physical inactivity, as well as constant access to cheap, fatty foods
are leading to an environment that almost guarantees we become obese.
q There
are 3 million soda machines – enough for one machine for every 97 people.
q Obesity
will overtake smoking if left unabated as the #1 cause of preventable death in
the U.S.
q Weight
gain and being overweight or obese leads to a lot of health problems such as:
1. Hypertension
2. Coronary
heart disease
3. Stroke
4. Gallbladder
disease
5. Osteo-arthritis
6. Sleep
apnea
7. Respitory
problems
8. Endometrial
cancer
9. Breast
Cancer
10. Prostrate
Cancer
11. Colon
Cancer
12. Insulin
resistance
13. Asthma
14. Reproductive
hormone abnormalities
15. Dyslipidemia
16. Hepatitus
17. Hyperuricemia
18. Cystic
Ovarian Syndrome
19. Impaired
Fertility
20. Adult onset
diabetes
q One
out of every 3 children born in 2000, if trends continue, will develop diabetes
in their life
q At
least 17 million Americans, 1 out of 20, have type 2 diabetes. If diabetes
starts before the age of 15, you may lose 17-27 years of life.
q Direct
medial costs have doubled in the past five years to 92 billion dollars.
q 20%
of obsess kids have elevated liver function. Tests show that half of them have
evidence of cirrhosis of the liver, which is scarring of the liver, which may
lead to liver failure as adults.
q Mc
Donald’s stated in their own defense that it is a “matter of common knowledge
that any processing that its foods undergo serve to make them more harmful than
unprocessed foods.”
q Mc
Nuggets – are made from chickens pumped with hormones so that have unusually
large breasts. The chickens are put into a machine whole, their heads are
chopped off, and they the rest of their bodies, including feces, comes out of
the machine in chicken Mc Nuggets.
q Americans
see a lot of advertising. The average child sees 10,000 food advertisements
each year on TV. 95% of those ads are for sugared cereals, soft drinks, and
candy.
q Companies
spend billions on selling and marketing their products. Mc Donald’s spent 1.4
billion on direct advertising. Hershey’s spent 200 million.
q But
the 5 A Day Fruit and Vegetable Campaign only spent 2 million a year. How can
they even compete in trying to educate about good, healthy food choices with so
much less money?
q What
is fructose? Sugar
q Half
of US homes do not have Internet access.
q Half
of all Mc Donald’s had posted nutritional information about their products. One
in four had no information at all.
q Losing
10% of your body weight is beneficial for your health.
q Impact
of fast food can be seen in our nation’s schools. A misconception of adults in
the school cafeterias is that kids are eating more than the junk food they bug,
but they are not often.
q There
are 36 grams of sugar in Country Time Lemonade. It has as much sugar as a Coke.
q Sodexo
services out to 400 school districts each day. They get to do this because they
were the lowest bidder, that serves, as a result, cheap, often fatty, foods.
q A
Truancy program turned things around at their school with diet. They used
Natural Ovens, to serve food at their school that is: low fat, low sugar, free
of dyes and preservatives, non-chemically processed, no beef, not fried or
opened from a can or a box. Instead their fruit is fresh, with lots of fruits
and vegetables and whole grains. The school also got rid of candy and soda
machines. The school saw major changes
in the kids – better behavior and more focus. The program costs the same as any
other school program. So why isn’t everyone doing this program? Because big
companies put a lot of pressure on schools to serve junk foods because the
companies make huge profits on the sale of lots of junk food and soda.
q LA
Unified banned soda, which has tons of sugar.
q Texas
has 5 out of the 10 fattest cities in American with Houston as the #1 fattest
city in America.
q In
the U.S. the only state that requires mandatory PE in its public schools is
Illinois, which is also one of the fattest states ironically enough.
q The
surgeon general says you need a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise a day to
maintain weight and well-being.
q In
2001, No Child Left Behind, was passed, and as a result in many schools, recess
is being cut out to prepare for tests.
q What
is a calorie? It is a measure of energy content in food. One calorie is the
amount of energy needed to raise a liter of water by 1 degree Celsius.
q There
are only 7 items on the Mc Donald’s menu with no sugar:
1. French
fries
2. Iced
tea
3. Diet
Coke
4. Chicken
Mc Nuggets
5. Hash
browns
6. Sausage
7. Coffee
q Morgan
Spurlock in the film, according to his doctors, was wiping out his liver with a
high fat diet.
q There
was a drug effect from the food within the brain – not just the taste kept him
eating, but the food affects mood and it can become addicting.
q 72%
of people who eat at Mc Donald’s at least once a week are heavy users.
q 22%
of people who eat at Mc Donald’s are super heavy eaters – they eat there
multiple times a week.
q 100
nutritionists were called in the film and 45 of them said never to eat at Mc
Donald’s.
q 30
billion dollars is spent each year on diet products and weight loss programs.
That is 2.5 times what Americans spend on fitness and health.
q Why
does the fast food industry have lobbyists to do for them?
1. To
make sure that no government agency ever says eat less of a company’s products
2. To
make sure that the government never passes legislation that is unfavorable.
q What
happened to Morgan Spurlock’s body as a result of his 30 day experiment eating
nothing but Mc Donald’s?
1. He
gained 24.5 pounds.
2. His
liver turned to fat
3. His
cholesterol shot up 65 points.
4. He
had an 11-15% body fat increase.
5. He
nearly doubled his risk of coronary heart disease.
6. He
became depressed and exhausted
7. His
sex life was non-existent
8. He
had bad mood swings
9. He
had massive cravings and massive headaches.
q Premium
salads at Mc Donald’s have 51 grams of fat and have more calories than a Big
Mac. Eating one provides you with 79% of your daily fat intake.
q Spurlock
was asked to Supersize his meals 9 times. Five of those were in Texas.
q He
consumed 30 pounds of sugar that month – a pound a day.
q He
consumed 12 pounds of fat over 30 days.
q The
Cheeseburger Bill was passed by Congress and makes it illegal to sue fast food
for making you obsess.
q Detroit
is now the #1 fattest city in America
q Texas
has now added five additional fattest cities to the list.
q Six
weeks after the film Super Size Me premiered, Mc Donald’s announced they were
eliminating their Super Size me menu.
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