Analysis Of Morgan Spurlock´s Supersize Me

In 1921, during the beginning of the Roaring 20’s decade, the first fast food chain restaurant was established and opened to the people. For the next 100 years, flapper dresses and jazz music began being replaced by cheap, chemically modified burgers and thus, the rise of obesity. Questions then began to emerge about the possible link between the consumption of fast foods and a person’s health. Were these well-loved and profitable chain companies causing obesity in both children and adults? Finally, in 2004, Morgan Spurlock decided to figure it out himself. In his informative documentary, “Supersize Me”, Spurlock, both director and producer, decides to solely eat McDonald's for every meal, every day, for thirty days to see if fast food restaurants

really do have a direct effect on health related issues. The use of both recorded footage of his thirty day trial as well as enlightening facts about obesity and food chains assisted him in conveying his message to the audience. Nominated for several videography awards, including an Oscar in 2005 for “Best Documentary”, and scoring a 93% on the Rotten Tomatoes Scale, “Supersize Me” has received positive feedback from almost its entire audience.

One critic perfectly captured my feelings towards the effectiveness of the film when he said, “It's one thing to know that fast food is bad for you. It's another to see that 'badness' demonstrated” -James Berardinelli. It’s common knowledge that fast food is not healthy, but seeing its effects firsthand creates a stronger desire to choose wisely when deciding what to put in your body. Though the documentary had overwhelmingly positive feedback, some critics find problems in it. As Peter Rainer, a thirty year film critic, asserts, “I'm not sure what Spurlock's escapade really accomplishes, except to emphasize that eating 5,000 calories a day, and exercising little, is bad for you.” However, Spurlock stressed many time throughout the film that his goal was to improve America’s awareness of nutritional eating as well as to see firsthand the effects of eating fast food on a person who rarely exercises anything besides the swipe of their credit card to pay for their Happy

Meal. Through the use of logos and pathos, Spurlock attempts to persuade his audience that eating at these tempting fast food restaurants will have detrimental consequences on the human body.
In “Supersize Me”, Spurlock perfectly balances his use of logos and pathos to show multiple ways of viewing his argument.

His first appeal, logos, is found from the opening credits to the blackout signaling the end of the film. He incorporates shocking and eye-opening statistics in order to backup his claims about the detriments of fast food. One of the first mentioned statistics in the film was that nearly 100 million people are overweight or obese, which equals more than sixty percent of all adults; related to that statistic, every day, one in four Americans, twenty-five percent of our nation, visits a fast food restaurant. At this rate, Spurlock points out that pretty quickly obesity is going to pass smoking as the leading preventable cause of death. Every year, 300,000 people die of obesity—only a mere 180,000 behind smoking. He stresses that 300,000 people die every year from a preventable cause. Hopefully that number reduced after the release of this

documentary.
Next, Spurlock uses pathos, in the form of graphic images and children, to appeal to his more sensory and sensitive audience. Contrasting hard facts, “Supersize Me” also incorporates graphic images, the first being Spurlock regurgitating a Big Mac and supersized fries combo. One minute the audience is watching our protagonist enjoying his meal, and the next minute we’re watching that same meal being rejected by his body and embraced by the pavement below. Second, the audience is enlightened by the making of a McNugget; it is the breast fat of a larger chicken with the addition of stabilizers and preservatives. That $4.49 ten-piece meal doesn’t seem so appetizing anymore does it? Finally, Spurlock shows a real Gastric Bypass surgery, a surgical operation that many obese adults must undergo in order to save their lives. This surgery causes its patients to lost two-thirds of their excess body weight in less than two years. In this specific surgery, the audience was lucky enough to see inside of the patient’s stomach, viewing failing intestines and an abundance of fat―enough to make you pick the apple over the fries next time.
The second pathos related technique used was Spurlock’s integration of child obesity. He argues that kids who grow up associating fast food restaurants with happy memories, full stomachs, and entertaining toys end up being more likely to develop a craving to eat it later in life. However, he also states that even children who are not allowed to eat at these chains are exposed to them through advertisements. He tests his theory on a group of four children. He showed them pictures of four people, George Washington, Jesus, Wendy, and Ronald McDonald, and he asked if they could tell him who that person was. One kid knew Washington, none knew Jesus, three knew Wendy, and all four named Ronald McDonald without hesitation. It’d be almost impossible, however, for kids nowadays to not know the McDonald's brand. Roughly $963 million dollars is spent on McDonald’s advertisements each year, about twenty-one percent of the total amount that all fast food restaurants spend on advertising. McDonald’s owns over fourteen thousand restaurants across America; they offer birthday parties and a playground area; they now have a tv show starring Ronald McDonald; they created the children’s meal and toy combo. McDonald's spends about 2.7 times as much money to advertise its products as all fruit, vegetable, bottled water, and milk advertisers combined. How do kids, their parents, or nutritional food companies stand a chance?
Though I have been an advocate for healthy eating for many years, my food consumption choices don’t always reflect that claim, so seeing the combination of logos and pathos helped me realize that I need to be more conscious of my eating habits and know what I’m eating and how it can affect my body. As Spurlock argues, we must educate our country on ways to prevent obesity and learn to make healthier eating choices. We have to choose our bodies over Big Macs. Otherwise, we might as well start digging our graves.