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Tyler Upton
Professor Collins
ENGL.1302
3 March, 2016
The Fast Food Epidemic
Super Size Me is about the long term and short term affects that eating fast food can do
to a persons health. During the film, Morgan Spurlock goes on a one month binge of eating
nothing but McDonalds to prove once and for all if fast food is really bad for one`s overall
health. The guidelines for the binge were that Mr. Spurlock has to eat everything on the menu at
least once, he had to eat at McDonalds three times a day, and if he was asked to upgrade his meal
to a large then he had to do so. Morgan Spurlock is a documentary film maker who weighed
approximately 185 pounds before his experiment. At the beginning of the film he states that he
was on vegan diet and lived a relatively healthy lifestyle. Remote and sufficient causes in the
documentary Super Size Me aims to prove that fast food leads to alarming health issues in
Americans today.
An argument that was made at the beginning of the film was that eating McDonalds will
make one gain weight. This remote cause was made so that Morgan Spurlock could research it
during his one month trial of eating nothing but only McDonalds. After five days of starting the
experiment, Spurlock weighed himself and gained an astonishing nine point five pounds. About a
week later, he gained another eight pounds. In the next weigh in however, Mr. Spurlock had lost
one pound. His doctor had explained that this was a result from losing muscle mass which
weighs more than fat. By the end of the month long experiment, Spurlock had gained roughly
twenty four pounds, going from 185 to about 210 pounds. At the end of the documentary, it states

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that it took about fourteen months to lose the twenty four pounds that Spurlock put on. In a study
put on by Dr. David Ludwig, a team followed 3000 young adults that enrolled in the study of
cardiac health over a fifteen year period. These applicants regularly got checkups and had
provided information about their lifestyle and eating habits. At the end of the study Dr. Ludwig
found that those who had eaten fast food twice or more a week had gained over ten pounds
compared to those who ate fast food less than once a week. Dr. Ludwigs evidence compared to
Morgan Spurlocks show that there is in fact a direct correlation to eating fast food and becoming
obese. However Dr. Ludwigs evidence is more reliable due to the fact that he ran his
experiments over a fifteen year period and the average weight gained by someone who regularly
ate fast food was ten pounds in contrast to Spurlock who gained an astonishing twenty four
pounds in a months time. The reason for this gap is because Ludwigs study allowed the person
being tested to live their normal life, while nothing about Spurlocks experiment would be
considered a normal lifestyle. The argument that Morgan Spurlock presents is faulty, because
although he did prove that when eating McDonalds it is possible to gain weight, he did so by
eating it three times a day for one month. The average person does not consume fast food at the
rate which Spurlock did which provides a fallacy in his argument. Also one of the guidelines
given for the month long binge was that if the employee at McDonalds asked Mr. Spurlock if he
wanted to super-size his meal then he had too. This is another fallacy in his claim because
super sizing a meal every time that he is asked adds a substantial amount of calories that he
would not have gained if he would have stuck with the normal serving size. If Morgan Spurlock
would have consumed McDonalds at the rate of which the normal person does while eating the
standard portion the evidence would have been stronger and his agreement would have made
sense.

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In the documentary Morgan Spurlock also argues that eating fast food can lead to heart
issues. This sufficient cause was made so that when Spurlock goes in for his checkup dates
throughout the month the doctors can test him for heart contemplations and prove his theory
right or wrong. In the end after going through multiple checkups, the doctors found that Mr.
Spurlocks health had deteriorated significantly. In fact one of his Doctors, Dr. Daryl Isaac, had
confronted Spurlock about stopping the experiment twenty one days in to prevent having
anything devastating happen. Despite being warned he went on with the study. The main cause of
Spurlocks health detreating was the fact that his chance for a cardiac arrest or a heart disease
had doubled compared to the same tests run before the experiment. This had come as a big
surprise unlike the weight gain because the doctors had expected the gain in weight but not the
heart problems. Heart problems have been long standing issue around the America and Mr.
Spurlocks evidence could pinpoint at least one cause of it. According to Daniel Pendick, the
former editor of the Harvard Men`s Health Watch, fast food is a direct link to heart problems.
Mr. Pendicks explanation for this happening is the increased amount of sodium being put into
fast food around the nation. He states that an excess amount of sodium intake can lead to high
blood pressure which in turn can lead to a stroke, heart attack, heart failure, and kidney disease.
A study called the JAMA Internal Medicine study conducted by The Center of Science in the
Public Interest in Washington, DC, shows that the average amount of sodium in chain restaurant
items had increased 2.6 percent between 2005 and 2011 in seventy-eight fast food restaurants..
All the while other products such as packaged foods in grocery stores have been steadily
decreasing the amount of sodium they put into their products. The theory Daniel Pendick
presents is proven by Spurlocks experiment due to the fact Spurlock had increased his sodium
intake when consuming McDonalds and his chance for cardiac arrest or heart disease had more

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than doubled. Spurlocks argument is valid due to the fact that his chances for heart problems
doubled in only a months time due to his increase in eating fast food. Sodium intake is a normal
process in the everyday life of people around the world. Even though Morgan Spurlock had
consumed fast food at well over the average rate of the normal human being, he proved that the
increased amount of sodium intake fast food provides can lead to long standing heart problems.
The documentary Super Size Me uses remote and sufficient causes to make claims that
fast food is bad for ones overall health. The first claim made in the documentary that fast food
leads to obesity, contains a well thought out theory but the experiment used to prove the claim
contained multiple fallacies that made is evidence inaccurate. Morgan Spurlocks second claim
that fast food leads to an increase in heart problems contained accurate facts and the month long
study proved his theory correct. In the end Morgan Spulocks documentary Super Size Me, is
effective in proving that eating fast food can lead to frightening health problems in Americans
today.

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Works Cited
Castillo, Michelle. Fast Food`s Nutritional Value Needs to Shape up. Cbsnews.com. Cbs
Interactive Inc., 8 May 2013. Web. 1 Mar. 2016.
This article writes about a study done on the fast-food industry on the nutritional values
it`s food offers. Not to a surprise the nutritional values were very bad and Michelle
Castillo goes on to say how it needs to change.
Pendick, Daniel. "Sodium Still High in Fast Food and Processed Foods - Harvard Health Blog."
Harvard Health Blog RSS. Harvard Men's Health Watch, 16 May 2013. Web. 01 Apr.
2016.
In this article Daniel Pendick, the former executive editor of the Harvard Mens Health
Watch, writes on the increasing amount of sodium intake from fast food and the results
of it. He states a study done in the article that had proved rises in the amount of sodium
in fast food chains food.
Study Says Eating Fast Food Makes You Fat.Msnbc.com. The Associated Press, 31 Dec. 2004.
Web.03 Mar.2016.
This article is all about why fast food makes people fat. It shows research done to back
up this claim. It also talks about the fights against the fast food chains but how they
have come out on top in legal battles.
Super Size Me. Dir. Morgan Spurlock. Perf. Morgan Spurlock. The Con, 2004. Netflix.
Super Size Me is documentary about a man named Morgan Spurlock who films his
experiment of eating McDonalds three times a day for a month straight. Over the time
period he visited a doctor regularly tracking his health along the way to see the effects

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of eating fast food for a month. In the end he saw the problems it had brought to himself
and came to the conclusion that fast food is bad for the world.