“The land of milk and honey “ was a phase used in the 1800’s to describe America. It represented wholesome opportunity with a sweet life. Nowadays a much different horizon exists, marred by corporations that put profits over people. How do I know this? I just watched the upsetting movie “Super Size Me.”
Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock is the creator of the movie which takes a look at the “fast food“ industry and its contribution to the obesity rates of Americans . Unfortunately, the U.S has become the fattest nation in the world with more than 60% of the adult population overweight and since 1980 twice as many children and 3 times as many adolescents. Obesity is second only to smoking as a major cause of preventable death!
In the movie Morgan Spurlock embarks on a journey of food discovery in Manhattan New York that is focused on the “fast food” giant McDonald’s . His choice was easy. Manhattan has more McDonald’s, 4 per square mile to be exact, than anywhere else in the world totaling 83! In fact McDonald’s operates over 30,000 joints in over 100 countries on six continents and feeds over 46 million people a day! This is staggering and very upsetting as you shall read.
Spurlock decides to eat three square meals a day for 30 days at McDonald’s. He can only eat what‘s on the menu and only “super size” if he is asked by the employee. His only source of exercise can be walking throughout the 30 days. But, before embarking on his adventure he hires three MD’s, a cardiologist, a gastroenterologist and a general practitioner. He also consults a nutritionist/ dietitian and an exercise physiologist. Once his profile is tested they find he is above average in fitness with a generally positive attitude toward life. He takes no medications, doesn’t smoke or drink alcohol. His blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, triglycerides and reflexes are prefect according to the MD’s.
The shocking thing is that halfway through his experiment all of the “experts “ who are monitoring his body changes tell him to stop the eating immediately because of the damage that is visible in the testing. Morgan is aware of many symptoms as well which include headaches, gas , temperature changes, stomachaches, chest pains, loss of breath, exhaustion , nausea, depression, vomiting, heart palpitations, decreased six drive, addiction to eat more of the fast food, lethargy and of course weigh gain.
However, he chooses not to stop and completes the 30 days with the following results: weight– 185.5 pounds at the start up to 210 (a total of 24.5 gain); cholesterol is 65 points higher; liver has become “fatty”; body fat started at 11% and increased to 18%. Several of the MD’s were quite surprised at the amount of stress the internal organs were experiencing. Morgan also consumed 12 pounds of fat and 30 pounds of sugar in the 30 days “hidden” in the McDonald diet and therefore doubled his risk for heart failure and heart disease.
He also realized the “lure” McDonald’s uses in its marketing scheme to indoctrinate children to a fast food diet. They do this by creating play places of bright colors and interesting sizes; birthday parties with all their food items for kids; happy meals; toys with food, and Ronald McDonald in person and on cartoons. It is a horrifying thought that parents don’t realize “fast food will make you sickly quickly”. By the time they do it may be too late! So I dare you to watch “Super Size Me”…… a must see if you want to come to the realization about the detrimental effect “fast food” has on society.
