The famous McDonald's diet film hid a secret: its star was drinking heavily
For thirty days in 2003, Morgan Spurlock ate three McDonald's meals daily and filmed his body falling apart. Super Size Me earned an Oscar nomination and helped push the chain to drop Super Size portions. Then, in 2017, Spurlock admitted he had been abusing alcohol throughout the experiment.
Spurlock set himself rules. Every meal had to come from the McDonald's menu, bottled water included, and he had to try every item at least once, a goal he reached within nine days. He would only accept a Super Size when a cashier offered it, which happened nine times. His stated average was around 5,000 kcal a day, roughly double the 2,500 generally suggested for a man holding steady weight.
The numbers on screen were dramatic. Starting at 185 pounds and standing 6 feet 2 inches, the 32-year-old finished near 210 pounds, a gain of about 24.5 pounds or 13 percent of his body mass. His cholesterol climbed to 230 mg/dL, and he reported mood swings, lost sex drive and fat building up in his liver. On day 21, after palpitations, his internist Daryl Isaacs urged him to quit; he carried on to March 2. Shedding the weight afterwards took over a year.
The project grew out of America's obesity worries and a failed lawsuit, Pelman v. McDonald's Corporation, brought for two overweight girls. The film premiered at Sundance in 2004, where Spurlock took the directing prize, and grossed $11,536,423 worldwide. It lost the Academy Award to Born into Brothels but won a Writers Guild screenplay award. Six weeks after the premiere, McDonald's discontinued Super Size, while denying any link to the movie.
Critics of the method were loud. McDonald's UK argued that anyone overeating that much without exercise would gain weight wherever the food came from. Tom Naughton's reply film Fat Head questioned whether the calorie counts added up and noted Spurlock never published his food log. Others ran their own McDonald's-only months: Soso Whaley lost 10 pounds at about 2,000 calories a day, and teacher John Cisna dropped 60 pounds over 180 days.
Source: Super Size Me
