http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4078903/

The Real Price of a Big Mac
Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock discusses life as a  human guinea pig
Spurlock, wired to an EKG machine, learns firsthand the human costs of
America's love affair with fast food
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Brian Braiker
Newsweek
Updated: 12:42 p.m. ET Jan. 29, 2004Jan. 27 - Sometimes inspiration
strikes in the unlikeliest places. After gorging himself on
Thanksgiving dinner in 2002, Morgan Spurlock was watching TV with his
belt unbuckled and his pants unzipped. On the news was a report about
two girls in New York who were suing McDonald's because, they claimed,
the food made them overweight and sick. At one point in the report,
recalls Spurlock, a representative for the fast-food chain claimed its
food was, in fact, nutritious. It was at that precise moment that
Spurlock, who runs his own production company, says "the bells went
off." He decided to make a documentary—his first feature-length
film—in which he would, in an attempt to explore why Americans are so
fat, eat at McDonald's three times a day for 30 solid days.

One year, thousands of fries and tens of thousands of calories later,
Spurlock has an award-winning film in the can. Titled, tongue planted
firmly in cheek, "Super Size Me," his documentary was a surprise hit
at Sundance last week, winning Spurlock the Best Director prize in the
documentary competition and drawing comparisons to the work of
"Bowling for Columbine" auteur Michael Moore.  With regular visits to
the doctor, interviews with experts on fast food and chats with
regular folk on the road, the viewer gets a front-row seat as the
formerly fit filmmaker eats everything on the menu, packing on the
pounds, and looking—and feeling—worse in each successive frame.
McDonald's' response? The home of the Happy Meal declined to comment
in the film but has released statements saying that its menu offers an
array of choices, some healthier than others. Spurlock, 33, spoke with
NEWSWEEK's Brian Braiker about his wild, fattening trip since that
moment of tryptophan-induced inspiration.

You ate three meals a day at McDonald's for 30 days for this film.
What happened to your body over the course of that month?
My body just basically falls apart over the course of this diet. I
start to get tired; I start to get headaches; my liver basically
starts to fill up with fat because there's so much fat and sugar in
this food. My blood sugar skyrockets, my cholesterol goes up off the
charts, my blood pressure becomes completely unmanageable. The doctors
were like "You have to stop."
Julie Soefer
Want fries with that? Director Morgan Spurlock
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


You saw more than one doctor?
I was seeing three different doctors over the course of this, just so
I would really have a fair balance between all the people so nobody
could say "oh, it was doctor bias; it was physician bias." Each of
these doctors was doing their own blood tests and each of the blood
tests were going to three different labs so there was no way lab error
could be an issue. Everything that happens to my body over the course
of the film was caused by this diet. And everything that happened to
my body was caused by this food that I got at this restaurant. I
didn't eat anything—no gum, no candy, not even a Tic Tac—everything
that I put in my mouth came from over the counter at McDonald's. Even
the water. I wouldn't even drink water from outside, that way there
would never be a question that "oh there was probably something in the
water somewhere else when he was traveling around." I only drank
bottled water from McDonald's.

How much weight did you put on?
I put on about 25 pounds in a month.

How did you feel at the end of the month?
[Laughs] I felt terrible! I felt so bad because I put on this weight
so quickly my knees hurt. I was so depressed. I would eat, and I would
feel so good because I would get all that sugar and caffeine and fat
and I would feel great. And an hour later I would just crash—I would
hit the wall and be angry and depressed and upset. I was a disaster to
live with. My girlfriend by the end was like "You have to stop because
I've had it." It really affects you in so many ways that I think a lot
of people don't realize, very subtle little things. Over the course of
the film you see my transformation, and it's not pleasant.

Why McDonald's specifically? Why not Burger King; why not Subway?
McDonald's is an icon, a cultural icon, a cultural phenomenon and
nothing represents America and the American fast-food way of life more
than McDonald's. The chain has 30,000 restaurants in more than 100
countries on six continents around the world. It has truly influenced
how we eat, how food is made and how, really, other cultures are
starting to eat. All these other food companies have started to follow
suit, from franchising and how they manufacture and distribute their
food, McDonald's is a trendsetter. So for me, the idea of picking
McDonald's was, one, to pick it as the icon for what it represents. It
represents every food, in my opinion; it represents every company.
Also in my opinion it represents the one company that more than
anybody else could really make a difference. McDonald's could
institute change that everyone else would also follow. It could do
away with super-size portions and everyone else would say, "Wow, you
know what? We don't need to do this anymore either. We need to make a
difference." If they would truly champion a change for healthier menu
option—it would happen across the board.

But doesn't it boil down to individual choice?
I think there is a level of personal choice. In the film it's not like
I'm saying fast food is the sole problem. In the film we examine a
multitude of issues that cause the obesity epidemic, personal choice
being one of them. McDonald's every day feeds 46 million people
worldwide—that's more than the entire population of Spain. You're
talking about one company that has a huge impact. I think that sure
you can argue personal choice, but on the same point, if there aren't
healthy menu options available, and there isn't nutrition information
available to people who come there to make a choice about what they're
going to eat, you're really limiting your argument on some levels.
Their marketing and advertising from the very beginning really targets
kids. Children from such an early age are just so washed over with the
idea of the happy clown and the Happy Meals and, oh, look, there's a
playground, let's go there for fun. I know kids whose parents have
never taken them to McDonald's, but if you ask them what their
favorite restaurant is and they'll say McDonald's—and they've never
even been in one! That's pretty scary.

This sounds a lot like Eric Schlosser's book "Fast Food Nation." Did
you read that?
"Fast Food Nation" is a tremendous book and was definitely something
that we referenced while we were making the film. Eric Schlosser and I
were e-mailing one another back and forth but never really connected,
and that was not really an influence on my doing the film. I read
"Fast Food Nation" when it first came out two years ago, and it's a
great book.

And you had this idea over Thanksgiving in 2002?
Yeah, what an amazing year. From the time that I got the idea to us
getting into the Sundance Film Festival was exactly one year. I came
up with the idea on Thanksgiving. And it was the day after
Thanksgiving, I was in Oregon with my girlfriend [Alex Jamieson] at
her parent's house. We were leaving her parents' house, and I got the
call on the phone from [Sundance's senior programmer] Trevor Groth,
and he says, "Congratulations, you got into the festival." It's like,
"Oh, my God, are you kidding me?" This is everything that you work
for, especially in America where this is the marquee film festival;
this is the top. It doesn't get any better than this in the United
States. It's an amazing feeling to have your film viewed as something
that people believe in and ever since we've come here the film has
been so well received from reviewers to just regular folks. God, it's
been such a ride.

You mentioned your girlfriend. She's a vegan, right?
[Laughs.] My girlfriend is a vegan, yeah. How ironic is that? We've
been together about four years now—she was there from the beginning.
She was in the movie.

How did she handle it?
She wasn't pleased. She wasn't real happy. But she was so supportive
and she's always been very supportive of me and the things that I do.
This was one of those things she didn't really like—she didn't really
agree with me eating the food—but she was like, "Listen, I understand
what you're trying to do." And she was great. She was very funny in
the movie.

McDonald's has argued that the premise of your film is unfair, that
its stores offer a wide array of food.
It's a very extreme route I took. That's the other argument that's
made: nobody's supposed to eat this food that often, no wonder all
these bad things happen. But the thing is, there are people who go to
these restaurants and do eat very heavy fat-laden foods and
sugar-laden foods every day. Maybe not every day but six days a week
or five days a week. And while they may not get the dramatic impacts
that I had—things may not happen at such an exaggerated rate—these
things will happen over the long run if they don't exercise, if
they're not taking care of themselves. You have to exercise a lot to
run off a super-sized Big Mac meal. You're talking about 1,500
calories. You eat 1,500 calories, you have to run for three or four
miles, for 45 minutes to an hour.

People have been comparing you to filmmaker Michael Moore.
Yeah, and you know, what better thing to have happen to a first-time
director?  But someday they will be calling Michael Moore the first
Morgan Spurlock. [Laughs.]

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.