Spurlock's Supersize Me

In Supersize Me, Spurlock shows himself throwing up after eating McDonalds for two straight days in an attempt to show how bad it is for a person’s body. This is an attempt to make the viewer feel disgust and then associate that emotion to the McDonalds food. Although it succeeds in making the view feel disgust it is not valid to imply that this reaction was only from the McDonald's food that he had consumed. Prior to his McDonald's experiment, Spurlock exercised regularly and ate healthier than the average person. In order for him to go from his normal diet to the McDonald's only diet would be a complete shock to his body that most people would not get. Spurlock does not mention his previous health during the viewing of him vomiting during the movie. He purposefully leaves out information that changes the scenario. Many people eat McDonalds everyday and do not vomit because they are not shocking their body. If Spurlock had eased himself into this diet, he most likely would not have vomited.

Ethos

When Spurlock is presenting his argument in Supersize Me that obesity is quickly becoming the number one cause of preventable death in America, he fails to connect that to his main point that the fast food industry is to blame.

Spurlock points out again and again that Americans are getting bigger, faster and with that so are the amounts of obesity related diseases. He brings up the case of two teenage girls trying to sue McDonalds for their unhealthy weight gain; however, even in this case that went to court, the girls’ lawyer failed to prove that their weight was caused by eating McDonald's which Spurlock, himself, admits. He never follows up to prove the case wrong later on; he continues to bash the fast food industry's unhealthy options without citing a single study that the industry is to blame for the nation's overall weight

gain.

When Spurlock goes to the nutritionist around half way through his experiment, she tells him that he is eating around 5000 Calories a day which is unhealthy as the recommended is 2000. Spurlock then uses this information to attack McDonald’s in Supersize Me; however, if you go an average restaurant for every meal, you will get the same results. A burger at a fancy restaurant will still be 1000 Calories. Targeting McDonald’s specifically for this problem is not accurately as the majority of restaurants have oversized meals. This is not a issue that is specific to Mcdonald’s despite what Spurlock implies. He is trying to further his argument against fast food by leaving out other relevant information. He could have said that eating out for every meal was the issue but he wanted to stick to his main purpose which was to persude people to not eat fast food.