Morgan Spurlock and A Tainted Super-Sized Legacy
Why the facts matter.
Twenty years ago, a documentary called Super Size Me came out that declared war on McDonald’s as a franchise. It claimed that a diet of just McDonald’s would be bad for your health, and that the franchise actively encouraged such habits using cheap food. The test subject and documentary creator, Morgan Spurlock, claimed to have a clean bill of health. He ate three meals of McDonald’s a day while tracking the weight change, spiking cholesterol levels, and mood swings.
The results were startling, as he talked with different people around the country while examining the influence of fast food on our pop culture and everyday lives. Spurlock also examined the accessibility of healthy foods and why getting fast food becomes ingrained into society. While no one else could replicate the experiment and achieve the same results, and critics pointed out that Spurlock ate a regular vegan diet before starting his experiment, one couldn’t ignore the visceral impact. McDonald’s sales went down the next year, according to Farout magazine.
Then in the wake of the MeToo movement in 2017, Spurlock confessed to being part of it and the argument started to shatter. He admitted that he was the subject of a sexual harassment suit and cheated on his partners, and that he was struggling with…
