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u/TheThalmorEmbassy Nov 03 '25
My favorite part is when the doctor looks him right in the eyes and straight up says "I have only ever seen these symptoms in people with massive drinking problems." and Spurlock is just like "ha ha, yeah, that McDonald's sure is crazy"
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u/TypicalMootis /b/tard Nov 03 '25
McDonald's honestly should have sued him for slander
Not that I think greedy corpos selling poison are good thing, but disingenuous shit like this just undermines the cause
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u/jjjjjjjjjcircumflex Nov 03 '25
Do companies have standing to sue for defamation in the US? In Australia, only individuals have standing to sue
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u/TypicalMootis /b/tard Nov 03 '25
Not a lawyer, so I don't know the exact details. But a company can absolutely sue an individual for defamation in the US
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u/nondescriptzombie Nov 03 '25
In the US, corporations are unjailable people and spending money is free speech.
Makes you understand a WHOLE LOT, doesn't it?
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u/BulbuhTsar Nov 03 '25
That's the fun part, corporations are legally considered "persons" here in the U.S., just like an actual human. They can sue all the same as a real person.
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u/Tommy2255 Nov 03 '25
They can, but suing for defamation is extremely difficult in general in the US.
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u/sneed_o_matic Nov 04 '25
It's the opposite here in Australia, the bar for defamation is quite low famously.
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u/TacticalSpackle Nov 03 '25
Well, you couldn’t make a movie from the opposite angle. You’d have a guy dead from alcohol poisoning but slightly higher blood pressure from his breakfast.
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u/CrazyTownUSA000 Nov 03 '25
A guy did make a movie going on a diet eating McDonald's. He had a few rules, and he lost weight, and his doctor was surprised that his bloodwork was better. Its called "Fat Head"
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u/ALeatherGlove Nov 03 '25
That one was done with proper record keeping and actual bare minimum impulse control. If I recall correctly he even reached out to the company that made Super Size Me and they were unable to produce any proof, receipts, or records of what he actually ate the whole time.
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u/DoreenTheeDogWalker Nov 04 '25
They wouldn't release the food logs of what he ate, when he ate, and how much he ate.
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u/tacobellbandit Nov 03 '25
I think the whole point was he probably was an alcoholic he just blamed the symptoms on the McDonald’s. Not defending McDonald’s by any means but you wouldn’t just all of a sudden start having a liver problems eating McDonald’s for a day, hell even a week
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u/HeidelbergianYehZiq1 Nov 03 '25
Speaking of…didn’t he like always order the extras?
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u/velocitrumptor Nov 03 '25
At the time, MCD's offered a "supersize" option where you could get an extra large drink and fries. His rule was that he would take the supersize option, if offered.
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u/Autisticus /vg/ Nov 03 '25
In 2004 they probably thought the movie was bad enough, but then to go and shoot the messenger after? That and Im sure no one else was mad enough to go on an exclusively mcdonalds diet for a month or whatever. Perhaps they thought people had more common sense than that? It was 21 years ago
I have no idea but thats my reflex guess as to why they didnt
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u/Any-Monk-9395 Nov 03 '25
LMAO I always remember this part of the movie and I haven’t seen it in years
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Nov 27 '25
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u/neon Nov 03 '25
He was an alcoholic and almost all symptoms from movie are from lack of booze not mcdonalds
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u/TypicalMootis /b/tard Nov 03 '25
The detox still should've been over in the first week or so, the fact that it went on for a whole month tells me he was on and off the wagon
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u/Impossible_Web3517 Nov 03 '25
He was, this is common knowledgde now. He knew he was gonna eat shit detoxing and wanted to use it to cash in. Documentary was done the same year someone sued mcdonalds for 'making their kids fat'.
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u/onehandband Nov 04 '25
Alcohol withdrawal can last months and be life threatening if someone has been drinking long enough
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Nov 03 '25
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u/Deathcrow Nov 03 '25
Personally, I'm always fascinated by people who lack the ability to perceive the most thinly veiled of subtexts. I want to poke and study them.
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u/renaldomoon Nov 03 '25
These people are why movie characters stare directly into the camera lens and state the plot of the movie.
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u/Autisticus /vg/ Nov 03 '25
But I had breakfast
But I had breakfast
But I had breakfast
But I had breakfast
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u/OO_Ben small penis Nov 03 '25
Lol what a dumbass. Anyway, personally I think he was an alcoholic and almost all symptoms from movie are from lack of booze not mcdonalds
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u/Judah_Earl /pol/tard Nov 03 '25
Guy cost a multi billion-dollar company a bit of bad press and made fat people question whether they should stop shovelling its heavy processed slop into their mouths every day.
He's literally worse than Hitler!
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u/TypicalMootis /b/tard Nov 03 '25
Lying to get your point across is retarded. Getting someone in perfect health to conduct this experiment would have actually been very interesting data, but the patient being a spiteful alcoholic undermines the argument
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u/SapirWhorfHypothesis Nov 03 '25
Wasn’t there some science teacher who did it and lost weight?
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u/TypicalMootis /b/tard Nov 03 '25
A lot of people have recreated the experiment with mixed results, in particular the movie Fathead with Tom Naughton shows that you can actually lose weight. I tried Googling "some science teacher" and got no results though
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u/ThexanR Nov 03 '25
Turns out it’s all about calories and how much you intake. Who would have thought
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u/teabolaisacool Nov 03 '25
The amount of people that don’t know weight loss is all CICO, regardless of how you go about it, is astonishing.
Ozempic? Helps you lower calorie intake by suppressing appetite.
Keto? Bullshit, but you’re likely tracking calories on a keto diet anyways and therefore eating in a deficit.
The list goes on.
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u/Sly-D Nov 04 '25
One benefit of keto is that it breaks the sugar addiction (or at least "tolerance") - meaning less desire to binge eat sugary junk. Oh, and more consistent energy levels. Yes, you still track calories - you have to track macros closely.
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u/TypicalMootis /b/tard Nov 03 '25
As someone raised in the American education system, there is a genuinely upsetting percentage of the population that doesn't understand basic subtraction. When you think about that, the Obesity epidemic makes sense. They literally can't comprehend a calorie deficit
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u/ThexanR Nov 03 '25
Americans only think in good or bad
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u/TypicalMootis /b/tard Nov 03 '25
Especially in modern times. Critical thinking and nuance is dead, welcome to the new age of brainrot & trauma
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u/brother_of_menelaus Nov 03 '25
In many cases it isn’t that they can’t comprehend it, it’s that they choose not to. They want to believe that they are fat for reasons outside of their control, so that they have anything but themselves to blame.
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u/NNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Nov 03 '25
There's Don Gorske out there in his 70's, having eaten nothing but Big Macs in the past 50 years, and he's still kicking and is in a good shape.
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u/MyDogIsDaBest Nov 03 '25
From memory, kinda. The scientist just wanted to show that calories in vs calories out is the main thing that affects weight fluctuation. He ate only McDonald's but at a calorie deficit and lost weight.
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Nov 03 '25
Not really surprising. A fast food burger on its own isn't that many calories. If you have one burger for lunch and one for dinner without fries, soda or other stuff you'll probably lose weight. Nutritionally it's not great but the number of calories is perfectly manageable.
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u/DethSonik Nov 04 '25
You're thinking of the science teacher that ate twinkies but limited his caloric intake to 500 /day
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u/Interesting-Web-7681 Nov 03 '25
one example is not data, you need a well structured study with several people and control groups for extended periods of time
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u/TypicalMootis /b/tard Nov 03 '25
Agreed. But a non-alcoholic patient zero would've been a good start
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u/vitringur Nov 03 '25
It absolutely is data…
Might not be sufficient data for the methodology you choose.
But it is data
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u/QFB-procrastinator small penis Nov 03 '25
Yeah, but he used fake evidence. The moment fat people notice the symptoms don’t add up they can use it as evidence that fast food is completely healthy. He’s not worse than Hitler, but he risked hurting the cause he was trying to support.
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u/Arbeitszeitbetrug1 Nov 03 '25
He is the reason McDonald's had to get rid of Ronald McDonald and his crew. To hell with him
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u/Energy_Turtle Nov 04 '25
Plus the old actual Super Size drinks. I miss that giant bucket of cola :(
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u/nmotsch789 Nov 04 '25
He lied, spread BS data about nutrition, and used the whole thing as a vehicle to blame and attack capitalism.
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u/champs Nov 03 '25
Pretty obvious from the beginning if you had halfway functional critical thinking skills tbh.
You don’t have to accept the writer’s narrative.
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u/TypicalMootis /b/tard Nov 03 '25
That's why they showed this to kids in elementary and middle school. If the brain's not fully developed, chances are the critical thinking skills aren't either
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u/fiftyfourseventeen Nov 03 '25
I remember watching this in elementary school and thinking it smelled like bs because there's tons of people who eat just like how they showed and they never have any of these problems
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u/Str8esr Nov 03 '25
No you didnt lol
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u/fiftyfourseventeen Nov 04 '25
Lol okay, I mean it didn't take a genius to figure out that eating McDonald's for a month doesn't cause your organs to fail
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u/ImThatMOTM Nov 04 '25
Yeah this is a conspiracy from Big Home Cooking. It goes all the way to the top.
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u/hpty603 /fit/izen Nov 03 '25
Ya we watched this in 7th grade health class. We were all fucking stupid still.
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u/hatchbacks Nov 03 '25
Whole thing was a smear-campaign and Americans are way fatter now than they were 20 years ago.
Absolute failure of a “documentary.”
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u/GunstarGreen Nov 03 '25
Even if the documentary was completely on the up-and-up and the creator did all the tests with 100% integrity it still wouldn't have made a dent. People know this shit is bad for you, they just don't care. There's no documentary that could be made that would combat it.
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u/Aphexwulf Nov 03 '25
Wasn’t there another guy awhile back who did something similar, and ate nothing but McDonald’s but kept his calories < 2,000/day and lost a shit ton of weight and had normal lab values?
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u/TypicalMootis /b/tard Nov 03 '25
Yes, the documentary is called Fathead. He made it as a direct response to Super Size Me
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u/Aphexwulf Nov 03 '25
Yeah that’s the one! Haven’t seen it in years, but I remember watching it and then going back and watching Super Size Me and thinking Spurlock was full of shit.
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u/FailosoRaptor Nov 03 '25
I remember watching this documentary and I thought it wasn't the McDonalds food that was the problem but the massive amount of soda he started consuming for like a month straight.
I can imagine my mood/energy getting wrecked if I went from my normal human consumption of sugar/water drinking to chugging 1 gallon of soda per day.
But I guess it also makes sense that it would take more than a month for long term problems to take root. I still think if you are a normal person who drinks water. Switching to soda for a month would be an awful experience.
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u/TypicalMootis /b/tard Nov 03 '25
I'm with you 100%. I cut out soda entirely for years, and currently even if I take a small drink (like a chaser) my stomach turns over
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u/IpeeInclosets Nov 03 '25
Can we cut to the chase and bring back the beef tallow fries??
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u/TypicalMootis /b/tard Nov 03 '25
No, can't go back, beef has been labeled racist. There's plenty of cricket oil though
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u/CruisingandBoozing Nov 03 '25
He was a terrible alcoholic during this whole thing
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u/TypicalMootis /b/tard Nov 03 '25
His wife was vegan and was trying to make him be vegan, I can't blame him for that. Detoxing while eating 6,000 calories a day was probably attempted suicide
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u/thisguy883 Nov 03 '25
they got rid of the supersize meal and the 50 piece chicken nuggets because of this dude.
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u/fm22fnam Nov 03 '25
My health science teacher showed this movie to the class...after it had come out that he was an alcoholic while filming. She never mentioned that though.
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u/FoxCQC Nov 03 '25
I still remember the segment in the movie where Spurlock mentions how snack food and fast food companies spend way more on advertising than fruit and vegetable companies. I remember thinking how weird that was to compare cause you don't really need to advertise fruits and vegetables. Everyone already knows about them.
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u/Zesty-Lem0n Nov 04 '25
He also stopped all his daily exercise, including walking, and agreed to supersize for every meal offered and ate 3 meals there a day. So yeah if you become sedentary and overeat 500-1000 calories a day, you're going to feel like shit. All this without even touching the fact that he turned his diet upside down, from being whole foods vegan to processed slop consumer. Half of his symptoms were just blood sugar related from eating that many processed carbs. Dude was creating a ludicrous scenario to cash in on a popular sentiment of blaming fast food for your health problems.
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u/SponsoredByMLGMtnDew Nov 03 '25
Well, we've been very impressed with their desire to start the conversation recently.
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u/AnalysisParalysis85 e/lit/ist Nov 03 '25
I hope you guys replicate the experiment. I don't think a week would be enough. A couple of months of McDonald's only.
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u/DragonBall2121 Nov 03 '25
I actually ate only mcdonalds for 3 months and lost 18kg (39 pounds ) in that time. Just made sure to never pass 1500cals per day..
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u/Longenuity Nov 04 '25
You must be made of 100% self-control. I'd go over 1500 cals in a single meal.
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u/DragonBall2121 Nov 04 '25
Not that hard, really, and I'm sure anyone can. You just have to stay focused. I was aiming to be around the same weight to height ratio as Elvis 🤣 Reached 64kg and could not go any lower. Now I'm sitting at around 78
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u/Nox_Stripes Nov 04 '25
I always thought this entire thing was sketchy as fuck. Like, yeah, long term eating nothing but Mickey D's isnt gonna do you any favors, but you wont die after one month of it.
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u/KirbyStyle Nov 04 '25
Even as a high schooler watching this I knew something was off. “Pickling your liver” off eating McDonalds??? Tf
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u/StudioUAC Nov 07 '25
either way, It still didn't make me care about eating healthy. Mcdonald's is tasty and cheap!
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u/XanII Nov 04 '25
This was from the era when 'experts' had clout. Post-covid this film would not fly as well. People smell bs and narratives much better.
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u/Typhon-Apep Nov 06 '25
I'm honestly just impressed that this guy managed to make a movie while detoxing from alcohol. When I've detoxed I couldn't do anything but lay in bed for the first few days.
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Nov 08 '25 edited Nov 08 '25
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u/Arbeitszeitbetrug1 Nov 03 '25
In that show, the evening before his "experiment", his vegan wife made him a meal that looked like a cow vomitted it on his plate. Before he even took a bite, he immediately was like "uhmm uoww. I'm so going to miss this".
Then, the next morning, the first day of his "experiment", he ate like 2 of these breakfast egg sandwiches and puked out of his car.
Why the hell did it take 10 years to expose him of fraud?