Recently I watched “Super High Me”, Doug Benson’s marijuana version of Morgan Spurlock’s documentary on McDonalds and fast food. Naturally, I followed it up with Spurlock’s original, “Supersize Me”.
Basic premise: Spurlock spent 30 days eating nothing but McDonald’s, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Periodically he went to doctors and had himself weighed and tested. He gained 20-30 lbs and his health went down dramatically; by one analysis, his liver took as much damage as a heavy drinker’s. His wife complained that his energy and sexual performance were noticeably worse. All the doctors advised him to stop eating fast food immediately. He did enjoy the food, but not its impact on him.
In addition to his own experiences, he talks about the huge pervasiveness of McDonald’s, the vast advertising campaigns of that company and all the others selling similar foods – compared to the miniscule advertising budgets for more healthy foods - and the degree to which obesity is a problem in the country, and argued a direct correlation between that and the fast food industry. This even included a discussion of the (unsuccessful) lawsuit against McDonald’s for causing obesity.
But his methodology was completely bogus. According to Spurlock, McDonald’s research classifies its “super heavy consumers” as visiting the restaurant 5-7 times a week, which is the most hardcore 22% of its customer base. Assuming 3 meals a day, seven days a week, that’s 7 out of 21 meals, or 33%. By its own calculations, McDonalds believes its most faithful customers are getting no more than a third of their food from the chain. But Spurlock restricted himself exclusively to McDonalds – he ate breakfast, lunch and dinner there 7 days a week for 30 days, with absolutely no other source of food. This is 21 visits a week, or 3 times the frequency of even the “super heavy consumers”. No wonder he had health issues.
You could do the same with wine or pizza. Imagine that for 30 days, your only source of liquid was wine. You’d be drunk most of the time, possibly get DUIs, get fired from your job, and do serious damage to your liver. Or if your sole source of food was pizza, you’d expect to get scurvy at the least, as pizza has no vitamin C. Neither of which shows that wine or pizza can’t be part of a nutritious diet – if neither is the SOLE element of your diet. Come to think of it, there’s probably not ONE food which is so healthy, that you could live on that food alone to the exclusion of all others. Whether it be fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, carbohydrates, or whatever, you’d be missing something and suffering accordingly. So what did Spurlock’s experiment prove? Actually, absolutely nothing. He endangered his life and health, and yet didn’t prove anything.
What does McDonald’s do? From the very beginning, they have been, and are, a “burger joint”. A burger is one particular type of food consumed at certain times by certain people. Mr. Big Mac guy – apparently a big John Lennon fan – seems to be exception that proves the rule. I’m not aware that McDonald’s has ever marketed itself as a healthy source of 100% of our nutritional needs – as opposed to a burger place you can hop off to for a burger every now and then. A large supermarket, on the other hand, could make that claim. Whether it be fruits, vegetables, meats, poultry, fish, breads, juices, milk, etc. theoretically such an establishment carries a varied enough selection to allow someone to build a healthy diet eating and drinking exclusively what that store carries. McDonald’s has made no such claims, nor would I expect it to – nor should Spurlock expect to, or claim to. This is the logical fallacy known as the “straw man attack”, where you knock down an obviously spurious claim which you attribute to your opponent in order to discredit him.
To add to the dishonesty of this, of course Spurlock uses the Michael Moore technique of “attempting” (without success) to contact the corporate spokesdroid, who of course refuses to return his phone calls. Why should they? This documentary had one sole purpose: to crucify McDonald’s. This was not a good faith analysis of the benefits, merits, and risks of the chain. Spurlock was out to discredit and embarrass the company. Any participation by a McDonald’s press agent would have been totally under Spurlock’s control to warp, twist, take out of context, or – and this is McDonald’s best case scenario if its spokesdroid said 100% the right things, none of which could be twisted out of context and used against them – simply ignored. So why help Spurlock make its case? Why give “the sanction of the victim”? Why give him credibility? And since this documentary was clearly biased against McDonald’s, why count it against them that they refused to show up at their own lynching? Far from “hiding anything” this merely shows that someone at McDonald’s understands how to handle punks like this clown.
Both Spurlock and Schlosser (in Fast Food Nation) put heavy emphasis on McDonald’s heavy marketing towards children. Ronald McDonald, Grimace, Hamburglar, Mayor McCheese, etc., the Happy Meals with the free toys inside, the playgrounds, etc. all clearly appeal to, and are marketed at, children. The idea is that children will bug their parents to go to McDonald’s, and the parents will be powerless to tell their children “NO”, or even “not today”. But so what? Whether for adults, or children, McDonald’s has never advocated or claim that its food be the sole source of nutrition for anyone. This argument on Spurlock’s part puts too much emphasis on the children and not enough credit to parents for any discipline or self-control. What we’re left with is yet another “the children!” (insincere weeping and wailing) irrational plea, instead of a truly coherent argument.
Plus, Spurlock was vague about how much McDonald’s he had been consuming before the experiment began, making his “control” questionable at best. Since no one relies exclusively on McDonald’s for food, a more appropriate and meaningful experiment would have been to eat there ONE meal a day, for 30 days. This would approximate the diet of the super heavy McDonalds’ customers. Note “heavy” is my word, referring to the frequency, not necessarily the obesity, of the customers.
Finally, and this is what differentiates fast food from tobacco, is that nowhere is it proven that fast food is addictive. Does it taste good? Definitely. As Eric Schlosser notes, the food is scientifically designed, after extensive research, to taste good. Why would we eat it if it didn’t taste good? One of the Judge Dredd cartoons, back in the 2000 AD magazine, concerned “Umpty Candy”, a candy which was addictive solely due to its flavor and not any chemical dependency. Perhaps an extreme, fictional example.
As for fast food “causing” obesity, Spurlock played fast and loose. A survey of nutritionists revealed that the vast majority believed that fast food played some role in America’s obesity problem. But what I didn’t hear was anyone – at least not a professional - saying fast food “caused” obesity; the obvious exceptions were the advocates and attorneys with vested pecuniary interests in making those arguments, and Spurlock himself. There is a subtle distinction between saying A is a “factor” in causing B, and saying that A caused B. This is the “necessary vs. sufficient” fallacy. It is “necessary” that my car has gas in the tank to run. But that doesn’t mean that having a full tank of gas will allow my car to run, is “sufficient”, if something else is wrong.
Let’s face it: there are a lot of overweight people in the US. But it’s unreasonable to assume that 100% of them have simply flat out refused to go on any sort of diet or give up fast food when told to do so by their doctor or weight loss specialist. Logic suggests that an appreciable percentage of them – maybe not a majority, certainly, but more than a nominal minority – have gone on diets and abstained from fast food. Yet they are still overweight. So while fast food probably has some role in promoting obesity, it cannot be the only factor. And if it’s not the only factor, it can’t be said to “cause” obesity.
So what we’re left with is: McDonald’s food is delicious, but can be toxic if that’s ALL you eat. You could say that about many things. Does that mean we should ban them all? Taken to its extreme, the arguments made by Spurlock and Schlosser would dictate that fast food, as a whole, should be banned, and that some central bureaucracy should dictate our diets to consist solely of bland, healthy foods with no concern about whether it tastes good or not. Spurlock specifically did not advocate anything along the lines of “please exercise restraint in eating this food. Once in awhile is OK, but not every day.” His message was: DON’T EAT THIS CRAP.
I used to eat fast food all the time. I ate it without any concern about specifically limiting my diet or frequency. Every Lent I’d typically remove fast food from my diet – which works out to be 6 weeks. Starting in 1995, I changed my focus, and have it since then. In general I keep my consumption of McDonald’s, or any other type of “fast food” down to about once or twice a week. Roy Rogers, Chipotle, Firehouse and Wendy’s are my preferences these days anyway. But ultimately it’s a matter of deciding, “NO, I am NOT going to eat at McDonald’s.” As parents, it’s telling your children, “NO, we are not going to eat at McDonalds.” I wouldn’t argue for a complete boycott, more like an intelligent rationing: we will go once a week, once a month, whatever is most appropriate, based on individual choice. Last I checked, it’s a free country.
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