Film Director goes on Mc's diet to document effect on his health

[Guest guest]

Lord of The Fries

By Robin Givhan

NEW YORK

It is lunchtime at a Mc's in midtown Manhattan and the tempting aroma

of hot french fries wafts out of the deep fryer and into the tidy plastic

dining room. The restaurant is bustling with chattering students, office

workers with laminated ID tags clipped to their breast pockets and

blue-collar men wearing shirts with their first names embroidered in block

letters. At the counter, the aggressively efficient, fast-talking clerk

announces, at the slightly elevated volume used by those for whom patience

is a job description, " WELCOME TO MCDONALD'S. May I take your order pleeze. "

Folks stare at the menu board overhead, more out of habit than interest.

They already know what they want. At virtually every table, diners are

kitted out with the full Mc's experience: signature hamburger with its

special sauce, large fries cooked in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils,

and a soda of significant proportions.

This is the idyllic fast-food scene. Hardworking folks with not much time

to spare grabbing a hot meal for about $5. Teenagers gossiping across a

molded plastic table, tossing fries at each other in jest. After finishing

their lunch, a group of four high school boys -- a blur of crunchy hair gel,

angry acne and hormonal adolescent awkwardness -- pull out a deck of cards

and linger over their 32-ounce sodas.

Film director Spurlock walked into scenes just like this every day

for a month. He was on a Mc's diet, seeking to survive on nothing but

fast food for 30 days and to document the effect on his health. Spurlock is

not a nutritionist, scientist or health food lobbyist but rather a

first-time filmmaker armed with a video camera. So he sidled up to

Mc, romped through Playland and ate three meals a day at the world's

largest fast-food chain. Every morsel that he consumed -- from the syrup on

his pancakes to the water he washed it down with -- came from Mc's.

At the end of his experiment the once-healthy Spurlock waddled out of the

last Mc's with a splotchy face, a reduced libido and 25 extra pounds.

He had been transformed into a pudgy young man with dangerously high

cholesterol, chest pains and a liver that was overwhelmed by the fat in his

system. The transformation has been edited into " Super Size Me, " a

documentary on the American obesity epidemic, which won critical acclaim at

the Sundance Film Festival and will be shown at the Lincoln Theatre today as

part of Filmfest DC.

" I talked to doctors beforehand and they all said, 'You're going to be

fine.' Three different doctors were all saying, 'You're going to be fine.'

It was shocking to everybody, what started to happen, " Spurlock says.

" Maybe this movie will be like 'Scared Straight!,' " he says. " Everybody

knows [fast food] is bad. But nobody knows how bad. "

In the sober aftermath of Spurlock's fat-and-sugar binge, it is hard to

look around a Mc's without becoming acutely aware of an American

population overwhelmed by obesity. Double-wide derrieres trundle lunches

high in saturated fat to tables. On the menu, the generously sized Extra

Value Meals take center stage with the eye-popping appeal of a Broadway

billboard. Near the tray-busing area, brochures touting " balanced eating "

and " nutrition facts " give consumers the dire news that the Double Quarter

Pounder With Cheese contains 760 calories and 100 percent of a diner's daily

allotment of saturated fat -- 20 grams.

On April 19, the chief executive of Mc's, Cantalupo, died of a

heart attack, a fact that makes a person wonder how many Big Macs (11 grams

of saturated fat) the average Mc's executive consumes over a career.

" I was completely shocked and taken aback. He was only 60 years old, "

Spurlock says. " I wish only the best for his family. "

In the film, Spurlock highlights his attempts to interview a Mc's

executive, but to no avail. In the tradition of 's " &

Me, " this film depicts Mc's as a faceless corporation using

inexpensive food, sugary drinks and fatty burgers to lure the American

populace into a lifestyle of plus-sizes, seat belt extenders and gastric

bypass surgery.

But Mc's says that by the end of the year it will have phased out its

super-size options, which allow a diner to order about one-third of a gallon

of soda or a half-pound of French fries and call it a single serving. And

it recently announced that it was sending celebrity trainer Bob Greene on a

cross-country biking and walking trip during which he will stop at

Mc's to talk to people about healthy living and tout the company's Go

Active! Happy Meal, which includes a salad.

The demise of super-sizing and the collaboration with Greene are

unconnected to Spurlock's film, says Mc's spokesman Bill Whitman.

" The movie has absolutely nothing to do with Mc's, " Whitman says.

" The essence of the movie is about one person's conscious decision to

overeat. That's not what Mc's is about. "

Spurlock came up with the premise for " Super Size Me " in 2002, while in the

throes of a post-Thanksgiving dinner tryptophan stupor. Reclining in a

chair, his tummy distended with turkey and all the trimmings, he watched a

television news report of a lawsuit filed against Mc's by two young

women who accused the burger chain of making them obese. The suit was

eventually dismissed.

" I'm not a litigious person, and I think that what's happened to this

country is that we start blaming other people, but I kept hearing about the

ingredients in fast food and the marketing and packaging and processing.

Then I heard Mc's say, 'Our food is nutritious.' And I thought

realistically you should be able to eat it every day. "

Before Spurlock began his journey into saturated fat and refined

carbohydrates, he established a few ground rules based on observations he'd

made of typical Mc's customers. They order Extra Value Meals, not à

la carte. They're not so fond of the salads. They generally say yes to

super-sizing when asked. For 30 days, Spurlock, under the supervision of

those three doctors and a nutritionist, took all of his meals at various

Mc's across the country, from New York, where he lives, to Texas. He

super-sized when asked. He ate everything on his tray. He cut back on

exercise, trying to take no more than the 2,500 steps that the average

American walks in a day.

In this pop cultural climate dominated by the stupid human tricks of

reality television shows, it is forgivable to assume that Spurlock spent a

month speed-eating Big Macs. But the point of " Super Size Me " is not to give

the audience the experience of a county fair eat-off or an episode of " Fear

Factor, " but rather to simulate in a compressed amount of time what Spurlock

believes many Americans do to their bodies over the course of a year.

On Day 1, as Spurlock started his morning by biting into an Egg McMuffin --

its hockey puck of egg sandwiched inside an English muffin -- he proclaimed

with a grin that he was embarking on the fantasy diet of an 8-year-old.

Coincidentally, his first Big Mac looked as though it had been styled by the

editors of Gourmet magazine: The bun was springy, each familiar layer was in

its place, the beef patties looked as though they were still sizzling, and

the special sauce dribbled enticingly over the edges. Before this project,

Spurlock was an occasional fast food customer. And in the beginning of the

movie, he speaks with great fondness about delicacies such as french fries,

hamburgers and other items that make nutritionists cringe.

As the days went on, he might have a Quarter Pounder for lunch and a Big

Mac for dinner. He sated his sweet tooth with McFlurries and yogurt

parfaits. He drank super-size Cokes, doused pancakes in packets of syrup and

drowned salads in Newman's Own Ranch Dressing, a single serving of which has

290 calories.

Encountering his first super-size meal, Spurlock quickly begins to

complain about his physical ailments: " McGas, " " McGurgles, " " McStomachache, "

he exclaims -- and then vomits from the window of his car. By Day 9, even

the Happy Meals are bringing him no joy.

Initially, his doctors thought he'd put on a few pounds, raise his

cholesterol a bit and do a little damage to his triglyceride level. But by

the third week, internist Daryl Isaacs announced with full-throated shock

that Spurlock was turning his liver " into pâté. " Spurlock was having chest

pains and Isaacs was begging him to consider taking an aspirin a day. His

cholesterol level had shot up from a normal 165 to 225. His nutritionist was

pleading with him to lay off the sodas and take a multivitamin. His

girlfriend, son, a vegan chef and holistic health counselor, bore

the expression of someone trying to be supportive even as she was

simultaneously repulsed and terrified. " I have to say it was one of the most

frightening experiences of my life. Around Day 21, when he goes to the

doctor and he's had chest pains in the middle of the night . . . I told him

that I thought, 'You could really hurt yourself permanently.' "

Along the way he talks to nutrition experts, former surgeon general

Satcher, educators, a food industry lobbyist, obese adults, fat teenagers,

Mc's junkies and his mother, who offers to give him a piece of her

liver if his turns fully into foie gras. Spurlock argues that Mc's and

other fast-food restaurants enable Americans to indulge their insatiable

appetites, and he shows Americans happily, knowingly and willingly consuming

high-fat foods.

" It's a film about corporate responsibility and personal responsibility, "

he says.

More than a year has passed since Spurlock, 33, ended his Mc's diet.

In his SoHo office, Spurlock leans back in his chair with an amiable slouch.

He is dressed in an orange shirt, jeans and the sort of olive green,

thick-soled work shoes that loudly announce that the wearer is not, nor has

he ever been, part of the establishment. With his sandy blond hair, lightly

etched goatee and schoolboy cheeks, Spurlock has a mischievous demeanor and

a sense of humor more prone to sarcasm and twisted irony than broad comedy.

He has the geographically indistinguishable accent of a newscaster. He is 6

feet 2 and once again a healthy, lean 185 pounds -- a fact that viewers of

" Super Size Me " will find reassuring.

Spurlock grew up in Beckley, W.Va. -- " a very overweight state. I go home

and see a lot of people overweight. But if you leave New York or any major

city, all there is is fast food and casual fast food. The portion sizes are

huge. People need to educate themselves and become aware. I'm not all about

blaming everyone for everything. It's a huge personal responsibility. "

" My mother worked like crazy, but she went home and cooked dinner because

it mattered. A nutritional table was important to her. Most people don't

cook, " he says.

" Super Size Me " was made for $100,000 and the director cannot hide his

amazement at the attention it has attracted.

" It's been awesome. To see a film talked about on 'Ebert & Roeper.' . . . I

met . He'd heard about the film and knew about me. I met

Schlosser [the author of 'Fast Food Nation']. The doors that the film has

opened, it's the greatest experience of my life. "

The film was financed with profits from one of his first ventures, " I Bet

You Will, " an online show that was eventually picked up by MTV. It is a

guerrilla-style production in the spirit of " Punk'd " and " Fear Factor " :

Folks on the street were offered a wad of cash to execute a dare. " We bought

the clothes off a Wall Street trader. We left him in his underwear and

briefcase, " Spurlock says. The most famous stunt involved paying a woman

$250 to shave her hair into a Mohawk, mix the hair clippings with several

sticks of butter, and then consume the mess.

The connection between " I Bet You Will " and " Super Size Me " is the

compelling spectacle of a sideshow. It is the same fascination that draws

audiences to watch escape artists and exhibitionists such as Blaine.

Like everybody on " I Bet You Will, " " I knew what I was getting myself

into, " Spurlock says. And in twisted solidarity with the trader left nearly

naked on the streets of Lower Manhattan and the woman who ate the hairball,

Spurlock submitted to an on-camera rectal exam and in a month ate 12 pounds

of fat and 30 pounds of sugar. " I paid my debt to society, " he says, rubbing

his tummy at the memory. " This house is clear. "

Almost as soon as Spurlock finished his last Mc's morsel, his

girlfriend had a custom-made " detox " vegan diet waiting for him. For six

weeks, he ate organic vegetables and olive oil. Meat, dairy products, sugar

and caffeine were all off-limits. His cholesterol and triglyceride levels

righted themselves. He lost the weight he'd gained -- the last five pounds

were, of course, the hardest to shed.

Now, he's back to eating meat. Spurlock thinks that he puts on weight

easier than before he started this experiment. And to his taste buds,

Mc's french fries now taste a lot like plastic.