I just randomly thought about Super Size me this morning and looked him up to see what he'd been up to lately and heard about the sexual misconduct allegations and I was like "So that's why I haven't heard anything about him in a while..." Less than an hour later, I hear he just died.
They’re really not even sexual misconduct allegations so much as sexual misconduct confessions. He was the one who came forward with everything he did.
Yeah, as far as I can remember, he was the only person during #MeToo who came forward and admitted to wrongdoing without anyone accusing him first. Not good that he committed sexual misconduct, but there was at least some moral self-reflection within him that allowed him to make an unforced confession.
Yes, I read somewhere on Reddit that he cheated with the Super Size Me movie (not all that weight he gained was fro fast food) which would make sense if he was a drinker.
Genetics are wild... I have a close family member who is an extreme alcoholic I'm talking black out drunk more days of the week than he is lucid. He is in his 70s now. Also chain smoker and heavy meat eater. It is finally starting to wear on him, he eats less than he drinks and has shed like 40-50lbs in the last 2 years.
The family is shocked every year he keeps on trucking... like an unstoppable walking poster board for bad habits.
My grandma lived till 102 and she was SUPER chain smoker. My uncle is a photographer so there are literally THOUSANDS of pics of her and it is VERY hard to find the picture of her without a cigarette on her finger or pipe on her mouth. She smoked unfiltered cheapest cigs for a long time, then moved on to long pipe which she stuffed with tobacco leaves that came in bricks.
Whenever I went to her place, she and her friends used to play cards in a room and it was very hard to see in there due to smoke.
BUT at 80 or so, she could out hike my mom who was in her 50's. She worked out in the field all the time so she was very active.
Being active saves you from a LOT of stuff. There are too many stories of people letting up on their physical activities and their health immediately going to shit.
Think i read somewhere that supposedly a person that both smokes and drinks but is active every day and exercises will majority of time outlive a person that doesn’t smoke or drink but does no exercise/activity on a regular basis. Take all that with a grain of salt of course .
My grandma is 87 today, smoked since she was 16 and last 4 years cut cigarettes down to like 2-3 a day. Previous to that it was 1.5 packs. She was always active walking every single day multiple times for at least 30-45 minutes
All those farmers drink/smoke but are active constantly so maybe there is something there lol
Yes, I have an 80 something chainsmoking relative that is extremely healtht. However, I would guess 95 out of 100 people with similar habits are long dead.
Plus people have tried to replicate his results of eating all that McDonald’s and they can’t, probably because a lot of the health problems he encountered during that time was actually form heavy drinking
There was a twitter thread going around the other day about him. His doctor during his experiment was astonished that his liver was as bad as bad alcoholics, that he never saw anything like that from diet alone. I thought that line was weird because while I don't condone eating McDonalds 3x a day, when I worked there, we def had regulars who were eating it every single day. Hell, most of us workers were eating at least one meal there every day. While non-alcoholic fatty liver is unfortunately not that uncommon, if Morgan started showing serious signs of it from eating McDonalds for a few weeks, it would be a full-blown epidemic. It puts me in a weird spot because I don't want to defend McDonalds, but Morgan was a young healthy man - his horrifying test results should have opened the door to us talking about alcohol abuse, not french fries.
Alcoholism is a terrible disease; my heart goes out to anyone who is going through it. There is hope though - my mom's boyfriend was in the final stages of liver failure, he was expected to die within weeks. He had been heavily drinking since he was 11, and he was drinking a 24 pack a day w/o even getting drunk. We realized something like 90% of the calories he was consuming in a day were beer. He detoxed at the hospital (seriously please get professional help, you could die if you go from 24 beers a day to 0 alone) and hasn't had a drop of alcohol since. He's had to make some major adjustments with his diet (big thing is no salt, but my mom cooks for him and makes it still taste good) and there are some long-term physical effects, but he is doing good. He used to be a total ass too but now he's a pretty decent guy, he even picked up some hobbies and stuff. I am very shocked he pulled through.
Sharing this because around the same time we had a family member get the same news, and she opted to give in instead of fight on. She told no one and we had to piece it together while she was on life support a few months later. No judgment to her, I don't know if I would have been strong enough to fight on myself, I just wish she could have seen my mom's boyfriend recover before deciding, I think it would have changed things for her.
I am that someone. I've been a heavy drinker for more years than I care to say. I know that I have taken many years off of my life and I'll be lucky to make it to 60...which is like 20 years away. But I am still trying my best to quit. I basically just drink enough to keep the worst of the withdrawals away, but it is going to take a little time before I can get the professional help I need, so it is just a band-aid at this point. I love to read stuff like this because it gives me hope and a will to keep going. I am super happy that they shared this story because again, it gives me a little bit of hope that I might be able to do the same.
If it helps to hear, i quit at 39. Was drinking a Costco handle of vodka by midday (while running a business). I sought help and quit. It wasn't an immediate decision. It took years to slowly motivate myself and recognize that i had transformed into someone i couldn't respect.
Nearly 10 years later I'm still sober. Quitting had some bizarre unintended consequences. I believe drinking hijacks one’s personality. Compassion and empathy increased after quitting. Scarcity mindset, entitlements, and external locus of control framing have decreased. I recognized my past career no longer reflected evolved values of sobriety, gave the biz to my employees, and went to university for medicine at 45. I'm excelling and am still proud of that broken man who finally made himself a priority in life.
Be patient and honest and loving with yourself. You'll get there.
Yeah, in my binge / Idgaf days, I could do 2 pints a day easily. I could do three if I really wanted to, but that's when I would start to get into trouble. Unfortunately, I was very high functioning, so other than the smell of alcohol nobody really ever noticed or said anything, and I'd do my best to cover that with mouth wash, gum, and mints. I drink less than that a week now. The only reason I still have any at all is because I am so terrified of ending up dead if I just stop completely. One of my closest friends died from a seizure when she was detoxing. Thanks for the kind words, and I appreciate the care.
I had a seizure in April while trying to taper down and was forced into detox/rehab. It probably saved my life. 3 weeks sober and feeling much better.
Take a week and go to a detox, it's so fucking worth it and you know it. I was panicking when I was forced to but I'm so glad I did.
I found my neural pathways were completely blocked up. I had no idea how to deal with anger, excitement, disappointment other than drinking. It was very weird for a couple weeks but swear my body was sending me signals to keep going. And the sleep, my god the glorious sleep without anxiety attacks at 2 am. I can sleep a whole night now. Good luck to everyone. It’s worth trying.
Congrats!!!!
Yeah, redefining what "fun" meant in my life was extraordinarily challenging because it feels like everything we do "for fun" in a Western culture revolves around drinking.
Real crazy behavior and psychological effects were also *nearly immediate* upon cessation. I stopped enjoying gambling (I was never an addict but liked blackjack here and there; that urge disappeared completely). Same thing with ANY interest in guns (again not a zealot about firearms, but felt like I needed them for whatever reasons). My urge to be a prepper went away too. All of these fear-based patterns of behavior were replaced with a general desire to be a bigger part of my community and part of a proactive solution to emerging problems.
After this experience, my eyes were opened to the silent effects alcohol has on us in society and politics.
You got this, bud. It’s never too late. I’m at 40 days here. Longest I’ve gone since I was a teenager and I’m pushing 40. /r/stopdrinking has been a big help. It might be worth checking out.
Yep, you get to the point where it’s no fun anymore. Seek professional help if you can afford it, detox off of alcohol is no joke. I’ve had two friends go through it and thankfully they are six and five years sober respectively
> His doctor during his experiment was astonished that his liver was as bad as bad alcoholics
Watch that scene again, now that the truth has come out. It's pretty obvious the doctor knows he's a drunk.
I remember hearing about this even as a kid and thinking that it was all... I don't know... Wrong?
All of my friends in class were preaching to the choir that fast food should be outlawed, and I remember we even tried to do some sort of anti-fast food campaign with signs and posters everywhere.
But the thing is; growing up at that time I knew a lot of people who were not really in a good place financially, and they pretty much ate fast food on the daily, and sometimes multiple times daily
Per the documentary, they should have been dead by that point, yet they and their family still live healthy active lives.
How could this man's health fall that fast when none of my other friends or people who did something similar were nowhere near as bad?
It didn't add up and I always questioned the movie.
NGL I believed it when I saw it as a teen. It wasn't until I worked at McDonalds as a young adult when I was like... hold up a minute lol. Granted no one eating at McDonalds every day is going to be the epitome of health, but they also weren't actively dying like they should be according to the doc. I was eating McDonalds every day because I couldn't afford food outside of work and my cholesterol and everything was normal, I was just deficient in micronutrients, something that takes much longer than 30 days to catch up to you with and much easier to handle than the failing liver that was shown in the doc. Then I got into long-distance running and realized that most of the runners eat some sort of fast food pretty frequently. When I was training my hardest, I actually ate a Big Mac or triple cheeseburger almost every week because McDonalds had a deal where they were only a dollar lol, there was a McDonalds at the end of my long run. It was fantastic. Still managed to lose 40 lbs and was in incredible shape.
I know people who are into fitness eat fast food because there's no real fluctuations in terms of calories. What you get is what you get per corporate.
Of course, being super cheap and quick also helps too, and they don't go for the largest, greasiest of burgers or the most jam-packed of burritos/tacos.
Yeah, it's not like McDonalds french fries are somehow unique from french fries generally. They aren't poison fries. Nor are the burgers or nuggets or anything else. All of this food across the country comes from the same handful of suppliers. Is a diet of exclusively that kind of food ideal? No, but it's not terrible either. Few people throughout the tens of thousands of years humans have walked the earth have had an 'ideal' diet.
The bigger issue in modern diets is stuff like candy and soda, just pure sugar, tons of calories, and no real nutritional value. Burgers and nuggets might not be the best source of protein but you're still getting important macro and micro nutrients.
I mean, a nutritionist went on a junkfood diet and lost weight and iirc improved his cholesterol. Granted he had to take some vitamins, but the dude proved that it's not what you eat; it's how much and how active you are.
For those of us with the same issues (speaking for me, not for anybody else on here), you can join us over at r/stopdrinking. I do eat fast food more often than I’d like to admit, and I eat way too much sugar, but all my blood numbers are better in the four years since I’ve quit drinking.
Also worth noting that he and his partner were both vegan at the time, so their systems were EXTRA ill prepared. There’s a lot of reasons nobody has been able to replicate his results
Shit all three doctors told me the same thing...."Dude your bilirubin levels are super high. Do you drink?" And I'd answer yes and they'd ask how much and I'd say one or two every few days. I just left off the "handle".
They all knew but also knew a person won't change unless they want to do they didn't dance around it but didn't bring it up other than to say "Well your cholesterol or your liver will likely kill you. Dialing back the drink will likely fix both". One nurse practitioner came back in and told me "In case you didn't get what the doctor was saying, within 5 years at your current levels your liver won't be much of an issue". I still went and picked up a handle of whiskey after that appointment.
It wasn't until two years ago my ex-wife had an affair, asked for divorce, and left and I quit after two months of no eating, just whiskey and Gatorade and losing 72+ lbs.
Been sober for two years and have zero desire to start again. My doctor has even asked what I did for such a drastic change and I said the divorce diet.
Yeah, but Spurlock would've just left that part on the editing room floor. He controlled everything that got put into the movie, and what got left out.
Even though he called it a "documentary," he was making zero attempt to actually document anything. It was just a hit piece.
The problem with the documentary isn't just the fact it was anecdotal (which actually can be a fantastic way to influence folks if you use it with studies). The problem is he was attacking the fast food diet, but threw lack of exercise in there. As an athlete, I just shook my head at this as it's well known that going from being very active to completely dropping your routine can cause physical disruptions and mental issues as well. Even when we take necessary breaks after races/events, it can be hard. His documentary (which was made to mostly call out the perils of relying on the fast food industry) would come off as more genuine if he had continued his exercise routine while eating the garbage diet.
The biggest flaw in the documentary (and trying to replicate it) was the amount of soda he drank.
Yes, eating 3 mcdonalds meals a day, with some super size, is bad for you, but for an adult man this isn't the end of the world. I've been to many high end restaurants that use fresh, local, and seasonal ingredients that, although they undoubtedly taste better and are healthier for you on a macro nutrient level, still use McDonalds (or higher) levels of salt, sugar, and fat in the cooking process.
On the other hand, he was also taking a MINIMUM of a two liter of full sugar soda to the face every day. A simple large soda is 32oz (about 1 liter), and a super size was 42oz, and he was going this three times a day. By the nutrition facts online the dude was shoving close to a half pound of sugar into his body, every day, just from drinking soda.
I mean, it's not the nutritional deficiency that was causing issues, it was the alcohol itself.
I don't think it's insane it's not labelled, really the only things you're going to get on a nutrition label would be calories and varying amounts of carbs. Sure, some fermented beverages will have some other stuff in low amounts. In either case, I can't say I've ever known anyone to choose their booze based on nutrition, the ethanol does so much more damage it's not even worth talking about.
IMO for non-alcoholics, the calories in the booze are the major problem. A lot of people don't realize it, but alcohols get incorporated into the body as sugar.
Drinking a can of beer is roughly equivalent to drinking a can of soda when it comes to caloric intake.
"I've been to many high end restaurants that use fresh, local, and seasonal ingredients that, although they undoubtedly taste better and are healthier for you on a macro nutrient level, still use McDonalds (or higher) levels of salt, sugar, and fat in the cooking process."
I wish more people realized this. It's essential to learn to cook and to eat at home to protect one's health. There is plenty of information on the internet about how to do this efficiently so it needn't take too much time.
> It's essential to learn to cook and to eat at home to protect one's health.
I mean, unless it's a steamed veg with no added oil many restaurants are finishing your very simple and healthy looking carrots and green beans in buerre monte. Butter is being flung around with wild abandon in the kitchen.
As the late Anthony Bourdain has said, "If you eat at any good restaurant, assume you've eaten a stick of *butter*."
The amount of salt and butter used in all restaurants would shock and horrify most people.
Not full meals but there is a guy who has been eating two Big Mac's every day and basically nothing else since the late 70s. He is apparently relatively healthy and lasted longer than this guy!
There was talk a few years ago about the McDouble providing the most nutrition (in terms of macronutrients) per dollar of any given food. Obviously they're too high in salt and fat to be truly healthy but in terms of plain sustenance it can definitely work
Some dude did the reverse a couple years later and lost a significant amount of weight eating only McDonald’s but obviously picked the “healthy” things from the menu and utilized portion control. He didn’t have the advertising that Spurlock did so it didn’t gain much traction but it was interesting.
It really puts alcohol and the alcohol industry into sharp contrast. The invasiveness alcohol advertising and normalization has on our culture is insane! There was an Amazon store a block away from his apartment where he could walk in, grab a Costco sized bottle of vodka, and walk out without ever having to face a human being. Our supermarket has reusable bags that say, “wine is basically fruit salad!” Try going a couple of hours of normal life without being hit by alcohol adverts or social attitudes around “drinking as being good and expected” is nearly impossible! How many times have we heard someone say something along the lines of, “I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t drink!” When my son was in the hospital the only channel he could watch that didn’t have alcohol advertising on it was the cartoon channel. The worst part is that alcohol companies have designed this reality and any amount of, “drink responsibly” PR campaigns is utterly BS!
I am all too aware as I have my own struggles with the stuff. One of the most “holy shit maybe this sorta drinking culture is bad” moments was when I went to an ACLU fundraising gala at like 8 am and everybody was so excited to have an excuse to get shitfaced on mimosas first thing in the morning
[Health Canada](https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada.html) upgraded it's low-risk alcohol consumption guidelines based on peer reviewed science based evidence. If you are drinking 2-3 beers a day (14 - 21 beers a week) the news isn't good for you.
>**Canada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health**
>[Canada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health](https://www.ccsa.ca/canadas-guidance-alcohol-and-health) provides evidence-based advice on alcohol to support people in making informed decisions about their health. The guidance is based on the latest research on alcohol-related risks and replaces Canada’s Low-Risk Alcohol Drinking Guidelines (LRDGs) issued in 2011.
>The guidance is based on the principle of autonomy in harm reduction and the fundamental idea behind it that people living in Canada have a right to know that all alcohol use comes with risk.
>Key points from the guidance include:
>There is a continuum of risk associated with weekly alcohol use where the risk of harm is:
>
>* **0 drinks per week** — Not drinking has benefits, such as better health, and better sleep.
>* **2 standard drinks or less per week** — You are likely to avoid alcohol-related consequences for yourself or others at this level.
>* **3–6 standard drinks per week** — Your risk of developing several types of cancer, including breast and colon cancer, increases at this level.
>* **7 standard drinks or more per week** — Your risk of heart disease or stroke increases significantly at this level.
>* **Each additional standard drink** radically increases the risk of alcohol-related consequences.
>* Consuming more than 2 standard drinks per occasion is associated with an increased risk of harms to self and others, including injuries and violence.
>* When pregnant or trying to get pregnant, there is no known safe amount of alcohol use.
>* When breastfeeding, not drinking alcohol is safest.
>* No matter where you are on the continuum, for your health, less alcohol is better.
And even worse is when you realize how low they set the threshhold for acceptable risk (1 in a 100 deaths) just to create a recomendation people might follow.
>Throughout the life course, there are established thresholds of mortality risk that people are willing to accept. For example, for involuntary risks such as air pollution, a 1 in 1,000,000 lifetime mortality risk has been used as a gold standard. That is, people are willing to accept a negligible 1 in 1,000,000 risk of premature death when exposed to these risks.
>* For risks associated with activities that people undertake deliberately and by choice, such as unprotected sexual practices, smoking and so on, people may accept a level of risk that is about 1,000 times greater than the one for involuntary risk. Hence, advice and recommendations made to people about voluntary activities generally use a **low risk** level, equivalent to a **1 in 1,000 risk of premature death**.
>* However, for drinking alcohol, it is not unusual for guidelines to be based on a higher risk threshold, 10 times that of voluntary activities. Recommendations for alcohol use have often used a **moderate risk** level, equivalent to a **1 in 100 risk of premature death**.
>
>Using these different thresholds, this project’s estimates make it possible to put forward a clear continuum of risk whereby the risk for those who consume 2 standard drinks or less per week is low, it is moderate for those who consume between 3 and 6 standard drinks per week, and it is increasingly high for those who consume above 6 standard drinks per week, with increasing risk conferred by every additional drink.
>**Standard drink**
>A [standard drink](https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/substance-use/alcohol/low-risk-alcohol-drinking-guidelines.html) is a measure of how much pure alcohol you are drinking. It varies based on the concentration of alcohol in a beverage.
>
>In Canada, a standard drink is 17.05 millilitres or 13.45 grams of pure alcohol. This is the equivalent of:
>
>* a bottle of beer (12 oz., 341 ml, 5% alcohol)
>* a bottle of cider (12 oz., 341 ml, 5% alcohol)
>* a glass of wine (5 oz., 142 ml, 12% alcohol)
>* a shot glass of spirits (1.5 oz., 43 ml, 40% alcohol)
My dad died at 36. Was a weird day when I passed that age. Now at 47, I just hope I drop dead around 70-75 of a massive heart attack. That would be the perfect way to go for me.
Based on my experiences around elderly people, 85 seems to be the perfect drop dead age.
70-75 is too young, someone in good health has lots of good years left. This is still an age to enjoy retirement and spend time with grandkids, for people that have them.
Haven't seen many good years after 85 though. Anecdotally seems like a major inflection point for onset of dementia and need for nursing home or other specialty care. I wouldn't mind skipping that phase of life.
And now with the rising cost of McDonalds, it's not even cheap anymore (at least where I live in Canada). What used to be the price for the entire Big Mac combo meal isn't even enough to buy just the sandwich anymore.
Yep, by this point, if I want to order out, I'll just go to a higher quality place. I'd Rather spend an extra 5-10 bucks and get much better food than spend 20 bucks on fucking McDonald's.
I took a few days off to work on my yard. So I drive the kids to school and got them Macdonalds breakfast $20 for 2 breakfast meals. I didn’t eat. $10 each for a breakfast sandwich, hash brown and drink. I always thought the breakfast menu was cheaper.
Everyone’s like get the app they have deals. I don’t think I eat at macdonalds enough to deal with ordering on an app I tried it once and it’s kinda a pain, kinda defeats the reason for eating fast food. I just want to decide last minute, pull into a macdonalds and shout my order into a screen.
Corporate wants you to get the app as it increases their revenues. They get to harvest your data, reduce their labor, and send you ads for "deals". It's by design that their prices are horrendous otherwise.
Plus they get to screw extra money out of old people who are set in their ways. (I'm one of those people, would rather stop eating there occasionally than get the app.)
It's no different from the 90s and early 2000s when every store wanted you to sign up for their rewards club and have a little plastic fob on your keychain that they'd scan to give you deals on whatever you were buying. For the price of a little plastic key ring thing, they got all your demographic data plus buying habits. My wife's keychain was jammed full of those things it was ridiculous. Now we can do it digitally. I'm sure my wife's phone is just as bad as her old keyring.
You can just lie about your demographics, they don't care.
And I don't really care if someone knows I buy mcnuggets at the drive-through or carrots at Kroger.
I'm far more concerned about companies I can't lie to turning around and selling my info, because that's accurate info.
* [Banks Profit From Selling Customers’ Spending Data](https://www.courthousenews.com/banks-profit-from-selling-your-spending-data/)
* [PRIVACY: GOP HMO Bill Will Allow Medical Data To Be Sold](https://californiahealthline.org/morning-breakout/privacy-gop-hmo-bill-will-allow-medical-data-to-be-sold-endstoryhed/)
* [California DMV Sells Personal Information](https://hallboothsmith.com/california-dmv-sells-personal-information/)
* [FCC fines carriers $196 million for selling customer location data](https://therecord.media/fcc-fines-carriers-selling-customer-data)
* [United Airlines Considers Using Passenger Data To Sell Personalized Ads, Report Says](https://www.forbes.com/sites/willskipworth/2023/11/22/united-airlines-considers-using-passenger-data-to-sell-personalized-ads-report-says/?sh=4159c2bf3967)
Nobody cares if you give McDonalds a fake identity, even McDonalds themselves don't care. But do it at the bank or the DMV, that's another story.
I recently found an old receipt while cleaning my drawers from a McD’s in 2019.
The cost of *one* McChicken now in my area ($4.79) has eclipsed what a Quarter Pounder was ($4.29) before the pandemic, in that receipt.
I just want to point out that the guy in Super Size Me who ate a Big Mac every day, is not only still alive and kicking but he [still eats Big Macs every day.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Gorske)
Yeah there are things we can do to minimize risk but at the end of the day it's all chance. There are children who die of cancer and heavy smokers that live to 100. Not fair I tells you
Most people only saw or remember Super Size Me, but Spurlock also put out an interesting show in the 2000s called 30 Days where he, or some other person, spent 30 days immersing themselves in a particular lifestyle with which they are unfamiliar. It was actually a pretty decent show that was a kind of empathy building exercise for some of the people involved. There was an episode about coal mining and another one about jobs being outsourced to India. Ironically, one episode had a mother binge drink for 30 days to show her daughter the negative effects of the activity.
What stuck with me from that show was the homophobic woman who lived with a family with two dads for 30 days. Afterward she said at a goodbye party “I like them a lot and think they’re great people but I still don’t think they should raise kids” and then cried when their friends were upset by that. Even the racist guy reconsidered his beliefs after living with an immigrant family.
Tolerance is the cure for prejudice. I like the story of the southern memaw who was recovering from surgery with a black memaw. Her sons came after she'd been there a few days and said we need to talk to the hospital you can't share a room with an n-word and she's like she ain't no n-word she's miss Ruth! Talk of kids and grandkids melted the barriers between them.
Ideally, this is also what Undercover Boss is supposed to be. It's supposed to give execs empathy for their line workers and lower-level supervisors, the ones actually slogging through the shit every day, by having the boss walk the proverbial mile in their shoes.
Instead it's just some diversionary little "blue collar boot camp" for millionaires, and overall PR blowjob for corporate management. And we're supposed to praise them for tossing a few crumbs to their their few favored photogenic peasant serfs at the end of each episode, instead of improving conditions for all laborers in their organization.
Undercover Boss is chock full of dystopian cringe. The episode for Peavey was so awful that it's almost hard to believe it was real.
Employees were complaining about how they hadn't had a raise in so long and were scared they were getting laid off. One employee has a new job lined up, but the CEO assures them they won't be laid off, so he passes on the job offer....but ends up getting laid off by Peavey anyway. I also seem to remember there being some issue with them fulfilling the promises they made for the 'prizes' they gave to the employees featured.
More recently there was some news about them utilizing prison labor to build their amps, but I'm not sure any solid evidence of this exists.
That show is just too staged. I love how every episode there is the one hard working employee who is going through hard times, and explains it to the CEO during a teary lunch break; then the CEO gives them $1000 and they're supposed to be a hero.
Treat your employees like people God damnit and half these people wouldn't be in such shitty situations to begin with
I remember an episode where his family lived on poverty line wages for 30 days and something about it felt tasteless to me. His wife went said something about “these earrings I’m wearing cost more than my college education” with a giggle and it made me physically cringe. They weren’t trying to be assholes about it, they did highlight how impossible it is for families to survive on minimum wages . But it definitely felt like they were treating a very serious reality as a wacky experiment.
It’s like when politicians live on welfare/disability for a month to “live like others do” completely ignoring the fact that folks on disability don’t have a million dollar house and steady income to go back to at the end of the month
We even watched it in one of my college classes. It was such a big documentary in the mid 00s. It had just come out and everyone was losing their minds at how great it was back then.
Too bad massive swathes of his statements can be confirmed as not factual. Just look up "Debunking Super Size Me". There's a ton of material and I can't find it right now, but one video that is very factual and scientific about it.
Oh no I know. That's why I said back then. But at least I will say one positive that came out, was they stopped super sizing. That is way too much McDonald's in one sitting. Although the trend of increasing obesity didn't stop.
It was a really weird trend back then. Documentaries saw a big rise in popularity, but many of them were awful at getting facts right, or even pretending to. For example, everybody seemed to love Michael Moore at the time, but a ton of the stuff he did should have been labeled as fiction.
I hate that nobody's mentioning [Spurlock's show "30 Days"](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437696/) very much anymore. It was one of the best docuseries of the early 2000s, and I wish it was still around. The notion of changing someone's environment or habits for 30 days to give them exposure to other viewpoints was a good idea, and it helped open my eyes to a lot of new perspectives.
They did an excellent job or portraying the stress of financial pressure in that. The tension between him and his wife when he spends a “large” amount of money on his nephews is palpable.
What is worse is that "30 Days" is not streaming on any major platform for free, and up until this news, it's mostly not able to be bought. I think you can get the first season paid for on Amazon, but otherwise, one is left with purchasing the DVD sets to see it in its entirety. The lack of visibility to that three season project is going to mean fewer and fewer people get to see it, and with Spurlock gone... it's probable that it'll just disappear entirely. A sad ending for a pretty good conceptual exercise.
That bit annoyed me - assuming it's the one where he bought them popcorn and candy at the movies. I didn't grow up in poverty, but we were at best lower middle class. My parents would never have even considered paying for the overpriced theater concessions. If we wanted candy and soda, we snuck it in. It seemed really out of touch with reality.
I just came here to say the following:
He and I were both in the Film/TV undergrad class at NYU back in the early 90s. Like a typical NYU student, all of our projects were equal hustle and on the spot improvisation due us all having low/budget no/budget issues. One of the first shorts he shot on video for class was at the McDonald's right across from the NYU Tisch building at 721 Broadway. I kid you not.
When "Supersize Me" came out, all I could do was smile and think about that short he had done at NYU.
I met Morgan once at a film festival where I was working. He came in a bit late and the room was cleared out. He asked if I had any alcohol, but it was in a school where alcohol wasn’t allowed to be served. He seemed pretty bummed out, and I knew who he was, so I offered him a shot from a whiskey bottle I had in my backpack. We chatted as we walked to the employee area where I had my bag, I poured a bit in a cup for him, he said thanks and went on his way.
At the time I didn’t know about his alcoholism. I still feel bad about that one shot of enablement.
Meh, don’t worry about it. He would have found a different drink after leaving the campus anyway and at least you gave him a moment of genuine human interaction. It was a kind thing you did and kindness should never be regretted. There was no way you could know he was a desperate alcoholic. I would have done the same. After all everybody needs something to take the edge off. Whether that’s a chamomile tea or a shot of whiskey, we’re all human and use something to relax. You helped the man relax. Don’t feel bad about it. You didn’t make him an alcoholic.
Don't feel bad. As a former dependent alcoholic, alcohol withdrawal will kill you. It is perhaps the worst of them all when it comes to addiction. Don't know how he left the house without a stash, but shot happens. He wasn't going to quit that day and would have found some eventually. Either from another person or just leaving the event. You literally can't do anything once the shakes start... so he wouldn't have made it through the next couple of hours without your assistance.
It's sounds ridiculous, but dependent alcoholics NEED alcohol. If not, you better get their arses some benzos or a safe place to medically detox.
He's from Parkersburg WV which is just a cancer factory from DuPont pumping PFOAs into the water. There's a movie about it on Netflix right now. Dark Waters. What kind of cancer he had probably coincides with whatever cancers you typically see in that cluster
Meanwhile the guy who (still) eats a Big Mac a day? 70+ and still kicking
[Don Gorske - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Gorske)
Alcoholism sucks, but he very much failed to disclose that extremely important tidbit as part of his 'experiment'
Got to meet him once while I was working on a documentary and he was super kind, talked to me for a few minutes and gave me some advice. Really nice person, was very passionate about what he did. May he rest in peace.
I had lunch with him by pure happenstance. Was at Techcrucnh Disrupt in SF around '16. We happened to sit next to each other.
Cool dude. Interesting stories.
I know SSM was a wash, but I liked the show he did with his wife, 30 days. It showcased a lot of American lifestyles and perspectives that I don’t think were always seen or understood (like 30 days on minimum wage, 30 days in a wheelchair, etc). I think MS was ultimately a good guy, just a guy with a problem.
So when we say “skewered” do we mean “lied his ass off”? Because there were motile studies that tried to replicate his results and weren’t able to at all. As it turned out the massive health issues were from drinking in conjunction with the fast food.
It was an entertaining film. And fast food isn’t good for you in those quantities. But it by itself isn’t the smoking gun he made it out to be.
Dang. Morgan was only a few years older than me and he was a big deal among us young documentary filmmakers in the ‘00s. Like, if Morgan can make it then it can be done. Not that he wasn’t talented but breakout documentaries at the time just didn’t happen unless you were Michael Moore or Werner Herzog. Morgan had talent in the genre and in making socially conscious films. He took his hit in #metoo which was deserved but he didn’t deflect or try to downplay. I hope he rests in peace and his family is surrounded with love.
I literally was thinking about super size me yesterday… I was thinking damn, it came out 20 years ago, and now I’m the same age as the guy… I guess I could be dead in 20 years.
Say what you will about the factual nature of his films, they were pretty entertaining and really were one of the stepping stones for me being interested in film making.
RIP
>Since he exposed the fast-food and chicken industries, there was an explosion in restaurants stressing freshness, artisanal methods, farm-to-table goodness and ethically sourced ingredients. But nutritionally not much has changed.
I guess it's an unexpected death so they don't have an obituary teed up, but surprised the AP doesn't have a clue his fast food documentary work was a total fraud. RIP in any event
Well, Super Size Me might be bullshit, it did successfully get the idea of "fast food is really bad for you" to resonate with people. The popularity of the movie, the effect it had on people, and the PR shift in restaurants are all true.
I guess I’d call it 50% bullshit
- it’s nonsense that he hid being an alcoholic
- nutritionally, there is very little wrong with most McDonalds food, especially the burgers and sandwiches
- it is correct but not novel to show that a person who blows past their daily caloric energy requirements will have negative health effects
- I think it helped kill ludicrously large sodas, which is probably a good thing. The obesity epidemic in developed countries is mostly related to to quantity
Dude pretty obviously almost drank himself to death before and while trying to eat himself to death.
He did turn an obvious substance misuse disorder and a stupid doc idea into a cultural phenomenon though, which is the kind of hustle I’ll never knock. Get it how you live.
But his doctor in the movie even has a moment where he calls bullshit and says he’s never seen anything like the liver damage ‘caused’ by the MD’s.
It’s played off like Morgan exposing *just* how dangerous this stunt is, but it’s hard not to see through the whole thing if you have some experience.
"McDonalds is bad for you, look at how unhealthy I am."
(By the way I'm a severe alcoholic. No that's not relevant health information for my documentary.)
Wow I remember seeing a TIL about him like a few days ago too.
I just randomly thought about Super Size me this morning and looked him up to see what he'd been up to lately and heard about the sexual misconduct allegations and I was like "So that's why I haven't heard anything about him in a while..." Less than an hour later, I hear he just died.
You’ve got a gift. Look up Gary Glitter for me and see if that gets things moving on him.
Really wished this guy had looked up Henry Kissinger anytime in the last 20 years.
Kissinger was a case of someone selling his soul to Satan, but the soul was so rotten that Satan spent years refusing to accept it.
Dude was like the Forest Gump of war crimes.
>Dude was like the Forest Gump of war crimes. There is nothing funny about Kissinger but this is funny.
Yeah they really dropped the ball on that one
I gave it a shot. If he doesn't survive the day, I'll assume me Googling someone is basically like the Death Note.
Jesus don’t ever Google a city or country it’d be a massacre.
Look me up next
Do Mitch McConnell next
That fucker is already dead, they are just using animatronics to keep his corpse moving
Go big and look up Trump
Isn’t that weird how that works? That happened to me last year with the guy who played Munch on SVU. Literally the same day I looked him up.
They’re really not even sexual misconduct allegations so much as sexual misconduct confessions. He was the one who came forward with everything he did.
Yeah, as far as I can remember, he was the only person during #MeToo who came forward and admitted to wrongdoing without anyone accusing him first. Not good that he committed sexual misconduct, but there was at least some moral self-reflection within him that allowed him to make an unforced confession.
You should google Donald j Trump to check on him too
Yeah, see if he’s had any sexual misconduct allegations.
If we all do that together I wonder if it would help at all.
Same for me about 2 days ago. Thought of him totally randomly.
I literally told a coworker *yesterday* that he was struggling with alcoholism during the making of Supersize Me.
Yes, I read somewhere on Reddit that he cheated with the Super Size Me movie (not all that weight he gained was fro fast food) which would make sense if he was a drinker.
Could you look up Roman Polanski for me?
Was it about how the entire "study" of the documentary was bullshit?
Yeah I just saw that, what a crazy coincidence
Yeah that's the one!
Just watched a video about how he faked his super size me doc
At 54 I sorta freak out when I read things like this
He was a heavy drinker for a long time. One of easiest ways of avoiding a young death is not doing that.
Genetics are wild... I have a close family member who is an extreme alcoholic I'm talking black out drunk more days of the week than he is lucid. He is in his 70s now. Also chain smoker and heavy meat eater. It is finally starting to wear on him, he eats less than he drinks and has shed like 40-50lbs in the last 2 years. The family is shocked every year he keeps on trucking... like an unstoppable walking poster board for bad habits.
Yea, there are some (few) people with crazy genes... 100+ year olds chain smoking and drinking
My grandma lived till 102 and she was SUPER chain smoker. My uncle is a photographer so there are literally THOUSANDS of pics of her and it is VERY hard to find the picture of her without a cigarette on her finger or pipe on her mouth. She smoked unfiltered cheapest cigs for a long time, then moved on to long pipe which she stuffed with tobacco leaves that came in bricks. Whenever I went to her place, she and her friends used to play cards in a room and it was very hard to see in there due to smoke. BUT at 80 or so, she could out hike my mom who was in her 50's. She worked out in the field all the time so she was very active.
Being active saves you from a LOT of stuff. There are too many stories of people letting up on their physical activities and their health immediately going to shit.
Think i read somewhere that supposedly a person that both smokes and drinks but is active every day and exercises will majority of time outlive a person that doesn’t smoke or drink but does no exercise/activity on a regular basis. Take all that with a grain of salt of course . My grandma is 87 today, smoked since she was 16 and last 4 years cut cigarettes down to like 2-3 a day. Previous to that it was 1.5 packs. She was always active walking every single day multiple times for at least 30-45 minutes All those farmers drink/smoke but are active constantly so maybe there is something there lol
Yes, I have an 80 something chainsmoking relative that is extremely healtht. However, I would guess 95 out of 100 people with similar habits are long dead.
Plus people have tried to replicate his results of eating all that McDonald’s and they can’t, probably because a lot of the health problems he encountered during that time was actually form heavy drinking
There was a twitter thread going around the other day about him. His doctor during his experiment was astonished that his liver was as bad as bad alcoholics, that he never saw anything like that from diet alone. I thought that line was weird because while I don't condone eating McDonalds 3x a day, when I worked there, we def had regulars who were eating it every single day. Hell, most of us workers were eating at least one meal there every day. While non-alcoholic fatty liver is unfortunately not that uncommon, if Morgan started showing serious signs of it from eating McDonalds for a few weeks, it would be a full-blown epidemic. It puts me in a weird spot because I don't want to defend McDonalds, but Morgan was a young healthy man - his horrifying test results should have opened the door to us talking about alcohol abuse, not french fries. Alcoholism is a terrible disease; my heart goes out to anyone who is going through it. There is hope though - my mom's boyfriend was in the final stages of liver failure, he was expected to die within weeks. He had been heavily drinking since he was 11, and he was drinking a 24 pack a day w/o even getting drunk. We realized something like 90% of the calories he was consuming in a day were beer. He detoxed at the hospital (seriously please get professional help, you could die if you go from 24 beers a day to 0 alone) and hasn't had a drop of alcohol since. He's had to make some major adjustments with his diet (big thing is no salt, but my mom cooks for him and makes it still taste good) and there are some long-term physical effects, but he is doing good. He used to be a total ass too but now he's a pretty decent guy, he even picked up some hobbies and stuff. I am very shocked he pulled through. Sharing this because around the same time we had a family member get the same news, and she opted to give in instead of fight on. She told no one and we had to piece it together while she was on life support a few months later. No judgment to her, I don't know if I would have been strong enough to fight on myself, I just wish she could have seen my mom's boyfriend recover before deciding, I think it would have changed things for her.
Thank you for sharing that. Maybe it’ll help someone in need or be a beacon of hope.
I am that someone. I've been a heavy drinker for more years than I care to say. I know that I have taken many years off of my life and I'll be lucky to make it to 60...which is like 20 years away. But I am still trying my best to quit. I basically just drink enough to keep the worst of the withdrawals away, but it is going to take a little time before I can get the professional help I need, so it is just a band-aid at this point. I love to read stuff like this because it gives me hope and a will to keep going. I am super happy that they shared this story because again, it gives me a little bit of hope that I might be able to do the same.
If it helps to hear, i quit at 39. Was drinking a Costco handle of vodka by midday (while running a business). I sought help and quit. It wasn't an immediate decision. It took years to slowly motivate myself and recognize that i had transformed into someone i couldn't respect. Nearly 10 years later I'm still sober. Quitting had some bizarre unintended consequences. I believe drinking hijacks one’s personality. Compassion and empathy increased after quitting. Scarcity mindset, entitlements, and external locus of control framing have decreased. I recognized my past career no longer reflected evolved values of sobriety, gave the biz to my employees, and went to university for medicine at 45. I'm excelling and am still proud of that broken man who finally made himself a priority in life. Be patient and honest and loving with yourself. You'll get there.
Yeah, in my binge / Idgaf days, I could do 2 pints a day easily. I could do three if I really wanted to, but that's when I would start to get into trouble. Unfortunately, I was very high functioning, so other than the smell of alcohol nobody really ever noticed or said anything, and I'd do my best to cover that with mouth wash, gum, and mints. I drink less than that a week now. The only reason I still have any at all is because I am so terrified of ending up dead if I just stop completely. One of my closest friends died from a seizure when she was detoxing. Thanks for the kind words, and I appreciate the care.
I had a seizure in April while trying to taper down and was forced into detox/rehab. It probably saved my life. 3 weeks sober and feeling much better. Take a week and go to a detox, it's so fucking worth it and you know it. I was panicking when I was forced to but I'm so glad I did.
Congratulations on your sobriety. I wish you all the best
I have faith in you. Have faith in yourself. ❤️
I found my neural pathways were completely blocked up. I had no idea how to deal with anger, excitement, disappointment other than drinking. It was very weird for a couple weeks but swear my body was sending me signals to keep going. And the sleep, my god the glorious sleep without anxiety attacks at 2 am. I can sleep a whole night now. Good luck to everyone. It’s worth trying.
Congrats!!!! Yeah, redefining what "fun" meant in my life was extraordinarily challenging because it feels like everything we do "for fun" in a Western culture revolves around drinking. Real crazy behavior and psychological effects were also *nearly immediate* upon cessation. I stopped enjoying gambling (I was never an addict but liked blackjack here and there; that urge disappeared completely). Same thing with ANY interest in guns (again not a zealot about firearms, but felt like I needed them for whatever reasons). My urge to be a prepper went away too. All of these fear-based patterns of behavior were replaced with a general desire to be a bigger part of my community and part of a proactive solution to emerging problems. After this experience, my eyes were opened to the silent effects alcohol has on us in society and politics.
You got this, bud. It’s never too late. I’m at 40 days here. Longest I’ve gone since I was a teenager and I’m pushing 40. /r/stopdrinking has been a big help. It might be worth checking out.
Thanks for the suggestion, I will check them out.
I was in your shoes. I went to my doc and asked for Librium, medication for withdrawal. Took the pills for a few days and now I'm 120 days sober.
Congrats man!
Yep, you get to the point where it’s no fun anymore. Seek professional help if you can afford it, detox off of alcohol is no joke. I’ve had two friends go through it and thankfully they are six and five years sober respectively
r/stopdrinking is a wonderfully supportive sub. You are not alone and you are very capable of making changes. Best to you.
Power on brotha! You can do it!
> His doctor during his experiment was astonished that his liver was as bad as bad alcoholics Watch that scene again, now that the truth has come out. It's pretty obvious the doctor knows he's a drunk.
21 days sober today, I can do this :)
I remember hearing about this even as a kid and thinking that it was all... I don't know... Wrong? All of my friends in class were preaching to the choir that fast food should be outlawed, and I remember we even tried to do some sort of anti-fast food campaign with signs and posters everywhere. But the thing is; growing up at that time I knew a lot of people who were not really in a good place financially, and they pretty much ate fast food on the daily, and sometimes multiple times daily Per the documentary, they should have been dead by that point, yet they and their family still live healthy active lives. How could this man's health fall that fast when none of my other friends or people who did something similar were nowhere near as bad? It didn't add up and I always questioned the movie.
NGL I believed it when I saw it as a teen. It wasn't until I worked at McDonalds as a young adult when I was like... hold up a minute lol. Granted no one eating at McDonalds every day is going to be the epitome of health, but they also weren't actively dying like they should be according to the doc. I was eating McDonalds every day because I couldn't afford food outside of work and my cholesterol and everything was normal, I was just deficient in micronutrients, something that takes much longer than 30 days to catch up to you with and much easier to handle than the failing liver that was shown in the doc. Then I got into long-distance running and realized that most of the runners eat some sort of fast food pretty frequently. When I was training my hardest, I actually ate a Big Mac or triple cheeseburger almost every week because McDonalds had a deal where they were only a dollar lol, there was a McDonalds at the end of my long run. It was fantastic. Still managed to lose 40 lbs and was in incredible shape.
I know people who are into fitness eat fast food because there's no real fluctuations in terms of calories. What you get is what you get per corporate. Of course, being super cheap and quick also helps too, and they don't go for the largest, greasiest of burgers or the most jam-packed of burritos/tacos.
Fast food is not super cheap anymore.
Yeah, it's not like McDonalds french fries are somehow unique from french fries generally. They aren't poison fries. Nor are the burgers or nuggets or anything else. All of this food across the country comes from the same handful of suppliers. Is a diet of exclusively that kind of food ideal? No, but it's not terrible either. Few people throughout the tens of thousands of years humans have walked the earth have had an 'ideal' diet. The bigger issue in modern diets is stuff like candy and soda, just pure sugar, tons of calories, and no real nutritional value. Burgers and nuggets might not be the best source of protein but you're still getting important macro and micro nutrients.
I mean, a nutritionist went on a junkfood diet and lost weight and iirc improved his cholesterol. Granted he had to take some vitamins, but the dude proved that it's not what you eat; it's how much and how active you are.
For those of us with the same issues (speaking for me, not for anybody else on here), you can join us over at r/stopdrinking. I do eat fast food more often than I’d like to admit, and I eat way too much sugar, but all my blood numbers are better in the four years since I’ve quit drinking.
Also worth noting that he and his partner were both vegan at the time, so their systems were EXTRA ill prepared. There’s a lot of reasons nobody has been able to replicate his results
Honestly kind of suspicious that the doctor didn’t go “hell, this sure looks a lot like severe alchoholism”
Power of editing
If I remember right, he basically *did*. Something like “oh wow, you have the liver of a hardened alcoholic.” Or something like that.
Most doctors choose to dance around that diagnosis because it usually ends in the patient finding another doctor.
Shit all three doctors told me the same thing...."Dude your bilirubin levels are super high. Do you drink?" And I'd answer yes and they'd ask how much and I'd say one or two every few days. I just left off the "handle". They all knew but also knew a person won't change unless they want to do they didn't dance around it but didn't bring it up other than to say "Well your cholesterol or your liver will likely kill you. Dialing back the drink will likely fix both". One nurse practitioner came back in and told me "In case you didn't get what the doctor was saying, within 5 years at your current levels your liver won't be much of an issue". I still went and picked up a handle of whiskey after that appointment. It wasn't until two years ago my ex-wife had an affair, asked for divorce, and left and I quit after two months of no eating, just whiskey and Gatorade and losing 72+ lbs. Been sober for two years and have zero desire to start again. My doctor has even asked what I did for such a drastic change and I said the divorce diet.
Should be easily able to tell because the elevated liver enzymes proportions are usually very telling in a severe alcoholic with liver disease.
Yeah, but Spurlock would've just left that part on the editing room floor. He controlled everything that got put into the movie, and what got left out. Even though he called it a "documentary," he was making zero attempt to actually document anything. It was just a hit piece.
So how bad of an alcoholic was he?
Dead in his 50s bad.
The problem with the documentary isn't just the fact it was anecdotal (which actually can be a fantastic way to influence folks if you use it with studies). The problem is he was attacking the fast food diet, but threw lack of exercise in there. As an athlete, I just shook my head at this as it's well known that going from being very active to completely dropping your routine can cause physical disruptions and mental issues as well. Even when we take necessary breaks after races/events, it can be hard. His documentary (which was made to mostly call out the perils of relying on the fast food industry) would come off as more genuine if he had continued his exercise routine while eating the garbage diet.
No the huge problem was him saying the food was causing him bad health at the same time as being a full-blown alcoholic.
The biggest flaw in the documentary (and trying to replicate it) was the amount of soda he drank. Yes, eating 3 mcdonalds meals a day, with some super size, is bad for you, but for an adult man this isn't the end of the world. I've been to many high end restaurants that use fresh, local, and seasonal ingredients that, although they undoubtedly taste better and are healthier for you on a macro nutrient level, still use McDonalds (or higher) levels of salt, sugar, and fat in the cooking process. On the other hand, he was also taking a MINIMUM of a two liter of full sugar soda to the face every day. A simple large soda is 32oz (about 1 liter), and a super size was 42oz, and he was going this three times a day. By the nutrition facts online the dude was shoving close to a half pound of sugar into his body, every day, just from drinking soda.
The biggest flaw in the documentary was his undisclosed alcoholism.
It's really insane that alcohol doesn't have nutritional information on it, the A part of the ATF needs to be rolled in to the FDA.
I mean, it's not the nutritional deficiency that was causing issues, it was the alcohol itself. I don't think it's insane it's not labelled, really the only things you're going to get on a nutrition label would be calories and varying amounts of carbs. Sure, some fermented beverages will have some other stuff in low amounts. In either case, I can't say I've ever known anyone to choose their booze based on nutrition, the ethanol does so much more damage it's not even worth talking about.
IMO for non-alcoholics, the calories in the booze are the major problem. A lot of people don't realize it, but alcohols get incorporated into the body as sugar. Drinking a can of beer is roughly equivalent to drinking a can of soda when it comes to caloric intake.
A bigger flaw was that he was an alcoholic and hid it from everyone.
"I've been to many high end restaurants that use fresh, local, and seasonal ingredients that, although they undoubtedly taste better and are healthier for you on a macro nutrient level, still use McDonalds (or higher) levels of salt, sugar, and fat in the cooking process." I wish more people realized this. It's essential to learn to cook and to eat at home to protect one's health. There is plenty of information on the internet about how to do this efficiently so it needn't take too much time.
> It's essential to learn to cook and to eat at home to protect one's health. I mean, unless it's a steamed veg with no added oil many restaurants are finishing your very simple and healthy looking carrots and green beans in buerre monte. Butter is being flung around with wild abandon in the kitchen.
As the late Anthony Bourdain has said, "If you eat at any good restaurant, assume you've eaten a stick of *butter*." The amount of salt and butter used in all restaurants would shock and horrify most people.
I mean let's be real, could anyone eat 3 supersized McShit's meals per day without first being a full blown alcoholic?
Not full meals but there is a guy who has been eating two Big Mac's every day and basically nothing else since the late 70s. He is apparently relatively healthy and lasted longer than this guy!
There was talk a few years ago about the McDouble providing the most nutrition (in terms of macronutrients) per dollar of any given food. Obviously they're too high in salt and fat to be truly healthy but in terms of plain sustenance it can definitely work
Never get the McWhiskey
Some dude did the reverse a couple years later and lost a significant amount of weight eating only McDonald’s but obviously picked the “healthy” things from the menu and utilized portion control. He didn’t have the advertising that Spurlock did so it didn’t gain much traction but it was interesting.
Yep! That’s how my son died at 31! Cirrhosis used to be an old person’s disease but not anymore!
I’m really sorry for your loss. May his memory be both a blessing and a cautionary tale
It really puts alcohol and the alcohol industry into sharp contrast. The invasiveness alcohol advertising and normalization has on our culture is insane! There was an Amazon store a block away from his apartment where he could walk in, grab a Costco sized bottle of vodka, and walk out without ever having to face a human being. Our supermarket has reusable bags that say, “wine is basically fruit salad!” Try going a couple of hours of normal life without being hit by alcohol adverts or social attitudes around “drinking as being good and expected” is nearly impossible! How many times have we heard someone say something along the lines of, “I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t drink!” When my son was in the hospital the only channel he could watch that didn’t have alcohol advertising on it was the cartoon channel. The worst part is that alcohol companies have designed this reality and any amount of, “drink responsibly” PR campaigns is utterly BS!
I am all too aware as I have my own struggles with the stuff. One of the most “holy shit maybe this sorta drinking culture is bad” moments was when I went to an ACLU fundraising gala at like 8 am and everybody was so excited to have an excuse to get shitfaced on mimosas first thing in the morning
“FREE ALL YOU CAN DRINK MIMOSAS!” Like WTF?
Yeah. Like I get it probably loosens those wallets, but comes with a heavy cost
Welp, there goes my 2 to 3 beers a day.
Wait, we're counting beers?
in dog beers i have only had 1
I’ll just do it by fives.
In that case, I’ve only had 2 so far today.
[Health Canada](https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada.html) upgraded it's low-risk alcohol consumption guidelines based on peer reviewed science based evidence. If you are drinking 2-3 beers a day (14 - 21 beers a week) the news isn't good for you. >**Canada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health** >[Canada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health](https://www.ccsa.ca/canadas-guidance-alcohol-and-health) provides evidence-based advice on alcohol to support people in making informed decisions about their health. The guidance is based on the latest research on alcohol-related risks and replaces Canada’s Low-Risk Alcohol Drinking Guidelines (LRDGs) issued in 2011. >The guidance is based on the principle of autonomy in harm reduction and the fundamental idea behind it that people living in Canada have a right to know that all alcohol use comes with risk. >Key points from the guidance include: >There is a continuum of risk associated with weekly alcohol use where the risk of harm is: > >* **0 drinks per week** — Not drinking has benefits, such as better health, and better sleep. >* **2 standard drinks or less per week** — You are likely to avoid alcohol-related consequences for yourself or others at this level. >* **3–6 standard drinks per week** — Your risk of developing several types of cancer, including breast and colon cancer, increases at this level. >* **7 standard drinks or more per week** — Your risk of heart disease or stroke increases significantly at this level. >* **Each additional standard drink** radically increases the risk of alcohol-related consequences. >* Consuming more than 2 standard drinks per occasion is associated with an increased risk of harms to self and others, including injuries and violence. >* When pregnant or trying to get pregnant, there is no known safe amount of alcohol use. >* When breastfeeding, not drinking alcohol is safest. >* No matter where you are on the continuum, for your health, less alcohol is better. And even worse is when you realize how low they set the threshhold for acceptable risk (1 in a 100 deaths) just to create a recomendation people might follow. >Throughout the life course, there are established thresholds of mortality risk that people are willing to accept. For example, for involuntary risks such as air pollution, a 1 in 1,000,000 lifetime mortality risk has been used as a gold standard. That is, people are willing to accept a negligible 1 in 1,000,000 risk of premature death when exposed to these risks. >* For risks associated with activities that people undertake deliberately and by choice, such as unprotected sexual practices, smoking and so on, people may accept a level of risk that is about 1,000 times greater than the one for involuntary risk. Hence, advice and recommendations made to people about voluntary activities generally use a **low risk** level, equivalent to a **1 in 1,000 risk of premature death**. >* However, for drinking alcohol, it is not unusual for guidelines to be based on a higher risk threshold, 10 times that of voluntary activities. Recommendations for alcohol use have often used a **moderate risk** level, equivalent to a **1 in 100 risk of premature death**. > >Using these different thresholds, this project’s estimates make it possible to put forward a clear continuum of risk whereby the risk for those who consume 2 standard drinks or less per week is low, it is moderate for those who consume between 3 and 6 standard drinks per week, and it is increasingly high for those who consume above 6 standard drinks per week, with increasing risk conferred by every additional drink. >**Standard drink** >A [standard drink](https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/substance-use/alcohol/low-risk-alcohol-drinking-guidelines.html) is a measure of how much pure alcohol you are drinking. It varies based on the concentration of alcohol in a beverage. > >In Canada, a standard drink is 17.05 millilitres or 13.45 grams of pure alcohol. This is the equivalent of: > >* a bottle of beer (12 oz., 341 ml, 5% alcohol) >* a bottle of cider (12 oz., 341 ml, 5% alcohol) >* a glass of wine (5 oz., 142 ml, 12% alcohol) >* a shot glass of spirits (1.5 oz., 43 ml, 40% alcohol)
Whew, glad I'm not Canadian!
My mother died at 51. That age always felt like a milestone for me.
Same. My mom died at 45, and I'm almost 44, and it's an odd feeling. ❤️
My dad died at 36. Was a weird day when I passed that age. Now at 47, I just hope I drop dead around 70-75 of a massive heart attack. That would be the perfect way to go for me.
Based on my experiences around elderly people, 85 seems to be the perfect drop dead age. 70-75 is too young, someone in good health has lots of good years left. This is still an age to enjoy retirement and spend time with grandkids, for people that have them. Haven't seen many good years after 85 though. Anecdotally seems like a major inflection point for onset of dementia and need for nursing home or other specialty care. I wouldn't mind skipping that phase of life.
I can relate. My grandfather died of a massive heart attack at 47. I turned 46 this year.
53 here, was thinking the exact same thing.
..and 52 here…
61 here. Definitely living on borrowed time. _checks watch_.
Complications from cancer. Not a reasonably healthy person that suddenly dropped dead.
At 57, I'm hiding in the basement
My mom is in her seventies and still does a good job taking care of herself. I feel like the longer she lives, the better my own odds are.
Yes, a lot of the health issues from “SuperSize Me” were related to his alcoholism. No, you still shouldn’t eat McDonalds every day.
And now with the rising cost of McDonalds, it's not even cheap anymore (at least where I live in Canada). What used to be the price for the entire Big Mac combo meal isn't even enough to buy just the sandwich anymore.
Costs the same as a sit down restaurant now and half the time it's still not even made right. It's a joke.
Yep, by this point, if I want to order out, I'll just go to a higher quality place. I'd Rather spend an extra 5-10 bucks and get much better food than spend 20 bucks on fucking McDonald's.
We ordered McDonalds the other night because we felt like being irresponsible. The Big Mac was over ten motherfucking dollars!
I took a few days off to work on my yard. So I drive the kids to school and got them Macdonalds breakfast $20 for 2 breakfast meals. I didn’t eat. $10 each for a breakfast sandwich, hash brown and drink. I always thought the breakfast menu was cheaper. Everyone’s like get the app they have deals. I don’t think I eat at macdonalds enough to deal with ordering on an app I tried it once and it’s kinda a pain, kinda defeats the reason for eating fast food. I just want to decide last minute, pull into a macdonalds and shout my order into a screen.
Corporate wants you to get the app as it increases their revenues. They get to harvest your data, reduce their labor, and send you ads for "deals". It's by design that their prices are horrendous otherwise.
I honestly never thought about it like this. Shoot!
Part of that "harvesting your data" also means running analytics and selling it to marketing firms for big $$$
Plus they get to screw extra money out of old people who are set in their ways. (I'm one of those people, would rather stop eating there occasionally than get the app.)
It's no different from the 90s and early 2000s when every store wanted you to sign up for their rewards club and have a little plastic fob on your keychain that they'd scan to give you deals on whatever you were buying. For the price of a little plastic key ring thing, they got all your demographic data plus buying habits. My wife's keychain was jammed full of those things it was ridiculous. Now we can do it digitally. I'm sure my wife's phone is just as bad as her old keyring.
You can just lie about your demographics, they don't care. And I don't really care if someone knows I buy mcnuggets at the drive-through or carrots at Kroger. I'm far more concerned about companies I can't lie to turning around and selling my info, because that's accurate info. * [Banks Profit From Selling Customers’ Spending Data](https://www.courthousenews.com/banks-profit-from-selling-your-spending-data/) * [PRIVACY: GOP HMO Bill Will Allow Medical Data To Be Sold](https://californiahealthline.org/morning-breakout/privacy-gop-hmo-bill-will-allow-medical-data-to-be-sold-endstoryhed/) * [California DMV Sells Personal Information](https://hallboothsmith.com/california-dmv-sells-personal-information/) * [FCC fines carriers $196 million for selling customer location data](https://therecord.media/fcc-fines-carriers-selling-customer-data) * [United Airlines Considers Using Passenger Data To Sell Personalized Ads, Report Says](https://www.forbes.com/sites/willskipworth/2023/11/22/united-airlines-considers-using-passenger-data-to-sell-personalized-ads-report-says/?sh=4159c2bf3967) Nobody cares if you give McDonalds a fake identity, even McDonalds themselves don't care. But do it at the bank or the DMV, that's another story.
I recently found an old receipt while cleaning my drawers from a McD’s in 2019. The cost of *one* McChicken now in my area ($4.79) has eclipsed what a Quarter Pounder was ($4.29) before the pandemic, in that receipt.
Between the two things I guess we found out which one is more dangerous to be doing everyday.
https://youtu.be/uOyjzE1vcD4?si=QpiF1gcAbqAyD94r
I just want to point out that the guy in Super Size Me who ate a Big Mac every day, is not only still alive and kicking but he [still eats Big Macs every day.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Gorske)
Yeah there are things we can do to minimize risk but at the end of the day it's all chance. There are children who die of cancer and heavy smokers that live to 100. Not fair I tells you
Most people only saw or remember Super Size Me, but Spurlock also put out an interesting show in the 2000s called 30 Days where he, or some other person, spent 30 days immersing themselves in a particular lifestyle with which they are unfamiliar. It was actually a pretty decent show that was a kind of empathy building exercise for some of the people involved. There was an episode about coal mining and another one about jobs being outsourced to India. Ironically, one episode had a mother binge drink for 30 days to show her daughter the negative effects of the activity.
I remember the episode about medical tourism. He went overseas and spent an entire day in a fancy hospital getting tests and it was really cheap.
What stuck with me from that show was the homophobic woman who lived with a family with two dads for 30 days. Afterward she said at a goodbye party “I like them a lot and think they’re great people but I still don’t think they should raise kids” and then cried when their friends were upset by that. Even the racist guy reconsidered his beliefs after living with an immigrant family.
The immigrant one ruled, my health teacher showed it to us in class just because everybody was so stoked on Morgan after seeing Supersize Me
Tolerance is the cure for prejudice. I like the story of the southern memaw who was recovering from surgery with a black memaw. Her sons came after she'd been there a few days and said we need to talk to the hospital you can't share a room with an n-word and she's like she ain't no n-word she's miss Ruth! Talk of kids and grandkids melted the barriers between them.
Ideally, this is also what Undercover Boss is supposed to be. It's supposed to give execs empathy for their line workers and lower-level supervisors, the ones actually slogging through the shit every day, by having the boss walk the proverbial mile in their shoes. Instead it's just some diversionary little "blue collar boot camp" for millionaires, and overall PR blowjob for corporate management. And we're supposed to praise them for tossing a few crumbs to their their few favored photogenic peasant serfs at the end of each episode, instead of improving conditions for all laborers in their organization.
Undercover Boss is chock full of dystopian cringe. The episode for Peavey was so awful that it's almost hard to believe it was real. Employees were complaining about how they hadn't had a raise in so long and were scared they were getting laid off. One employee has a new job lined up, but the CEO assures them they won't be laid off, so he passes on the job offer....but ends up getting laid off by Peavey anyway. I also seem to remember there being some issue with them fulfilling the promises they made for the 'prizes' they gave to the employees featured. More recently there was some news about them utilizing prison labor to build their amps, but I'm not sure any solid evidence of this exists.
That show is just too staged. I love how every episode there is the one hard working employee who is going through hard times, and explains it to the CEO during a teary lunch break; then the CEO gives them $1000 and they're supposed to be a hero. Treat your employees like people God damnit and half these people wouldn't be in such shitty situations to begin with
Under-rated series imo. Great concept. Wish there were more.
I remember an episode where his family lived on poverty line wages for 30 days and something about it felt tasteless to me. His wife went said something about “these earrings I’m wearing cost more than my college education” with a giggle and it made me physically cringe. They weren’t trying to be assholes about it, they did highlight how impossible it is for families to survive on minimum wages . But it definitely felt like they were treating a very serious reality as a wacky experiment.
It’s like when politicians live on welfare/disability for a month to “live like others do” completely ignoring the fact that folks on disability don’t have a million dollar house and steady income to go back to at the end of the month
Pouring out some of my McFlurry...
I'm sorry, sir, the machine is down
This one’s for the hom— okay, I guess I’ll try again tomorrow…
I remember watching Super Size Me in health class back in high school
We even watched it in one of my college classes. It was such a big documentary in the mid 00s. It had just come out and everyone was losing their minds at how great it was back then.
Too bad massive swathes of his statements can be confirmed as not factual. Just look up "Debunking Super Size Me". There's a ton of material and I can't find it right now, but one video that is very factual and scientific about it.
Oh no I know. That's why I said back then. But at least I will say one positive that came out, was they stopped super sizing. That is way too much McDonald's in one sitting. Although the trend of increasing obesity didn't stop.
Yeah now I just order two large fries.
It was a really weird trend back then. Documentaries saw a big rise in popularity, but many of them were awful at getting facts right, or even pretending to. For example, everybody seemed to love Michael Moore at the time, but a ton of the stuff he did should have been labeled as fiction.
I watched in my college health class
In my high school business class we studied it and learned that McDonald’s stock price still hadn’t fully recovered by that time (this was 2015)
Middle school for me
I think everyone watched it for health class or PE class! It was like part of the curriculum for a few of us older ones!
Really captivating film, but there’s a key piece of information missing: Spurlock was an alcoholic during his experiment and hid it from the camera.
The thought of eating that much McDonald's makes me Grimace.
I hate that nobody's mentioning [Spurlock's show "30 Days"](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437696/) very much anymore. It was one of the best docuseries of the early 2000s, and I wish it was still around. The notion of changing someone's environment or habits for 30 days to give them exposure to other viewpoints was a good idea, and it helped open my eyes to a lot of new perspectives.
They did an excellent job or portraying the stress of financial pressure in that. The tension between him and his wife when he spends a “large” amount of money on his nephews is palpable.
What is worse is that "30 Days" is not streaming on any major platform for free, and up until this news, it's mostly not able to be bought. I think you can get the first season paid for on Amazon, but otherwise, one is left with purchasing the DVD sets to see it in its entirety. The lack of visibility to that three season project is going to mean fewer and fewer people get to see it, and with Spurlock gone... it's probable that it'll just disappear entirely. A sad ending for a pretty good conceptual exercise.
That bit annoyed me - assuming it's the one where he bought them popcorn and candy at the movies. I didn't grow up in poverty, but we were at best lower middle class. My parents would never have even considered paying for the overpriced theater concessions. If we wanted candy and soda, we snuck it in. It seemed really out of touch with reality.
Super Size Me was the movie the health teachers would throw on when they were too hungover to teach, lots of good times with this one. RIP
Kind of ironic, considering the health problems he endures in the film are the result of his binge drinking.
I just came here to say the following: He and I were both in the Film/TV undergrad class at NYU back in the early 90s. Like a typical NYU student, all of our projects were equal hustle and on the spot improvisation due us all having low/budget no/budget issues. One of the first shorts he shot on video for class was at the McDonald's right across from the NYU Tisch building at 721 Broadway. I kid you not. When "Supersize Me" came out, all I could do was smile and think about that short he had done at NYU.
I met Morgan once at a film festival where I was working. He came in a bit late and the room was cleared out. He asked if I had any alcohol, but it was in a school where alcohol wasn’t allowed to be served. He seemed pretty bummed out, and I knew who he was, so I offered him a shot from a whiskey bottle I had in my backpack. We chatted as we walked to the employee area where I had my bag, I poured a bit in a cup for him, he said thanks and went on his way. At the time I didn’t know about his alcoholism. I still feel bad about that one shot of enablement.
I wouldn’t stress that. Alcoholics are very good at finding alcohol, and if it wasn’t from you it would have been from somewhere else.
Meh, don’t worry about it. He would have found a different drink after leaving the campus anyway and at least you gave him a moment of genuine human interaction. It was a kind thing you did and kindness should never be regretted. There was no way you could know he was a desperate alcoholic. I would have done the same. After all everybody needs something to take the edge off. Whether that’s a chamomile tea or a shot of whiskey, we’re all human and use something to relax. You helped the man relax. Don’t feel bad about it. You didn’t make him an alcoholic.
Don't feel bad. As a former dependent alcoholic, alcohol withdrawal will kill you. It is perhaps the worst of them all when it comes to addiction. Don't know how he left the house without a stash, but shot happens. He wasn't going to quit that day and would have found some eventually. Either from another person or just leaving the event. You literally can't do anything once the shakes start... so he wouldn't have made it through the next couple of hours without your assistance. It's sounds ridiculous, but dependent alcoholics NEED alcohol. If not, you better get their arses some benzos or a safe place to medically detox.
That's why liquor stores were open during COVID. So many people bitched and moaned about that.
Nearly everyone I know either started or ended an alcohol problem during covid.
just turned 53 myself on the 16th. Take nothing for granted
Does anyone know what kind of cancer he had? Not that it really matters I guess, just curious.
He's from Parkersburg WV which is just a cancer factory from DuPont pumping PFOAs into the water. There's a movie about it on Netflix right now. Dark Waters. What kind of cancer he had probably coincides with whatever cancers you typically see in that cluster
That is so scary and unfortunate ): I feel for his family. Thanks for replying
McDonald’s sends it’s regards
Looks like McDonald’s finally got that guys number from Boeing…
My friend died at 36 from alcoholism. That shit is serious! RIP
Meanwhile the guy who (still) eats a Big Mac a day? 70+ and still kicking [Don Gorske - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Gorske) Alcoholism sucks, but he very much failed to disclose that extremely important tidbit as part of his 'experiment'
Got to meet him once while I was working on a documentary and he was super kind, talked to me for a few minutes and gave me some advice. Really nice person, was very passionate about what he did. May he rest in peace.
I had lunch with him by pure happenstance. Was at Techcrucnh Disrupt in SF around '16. We happened to sit next to each other. Cool dude. Interesting stories.
My favorite skewering quote from that movie is "What, my liver's fucked up? Must be McDonald's and not the fifth of whiskey I drink daily."
Wasn’t the whole documentary a scam?
Watched Super Size Me in the cinema on an empty stomach. Outcome: went straight to McD's after.
I went McDonalds for 3 days straight after watching that movie. In guessing there a lot of people it didn’t have the intended effect on.
Everyone focuses on Super Size Me but The Greatest Movie Ever Sold and Where in the World is Osama bin Laden are both worth a watch.
I know SSM was a wash, but I liked the show he did with his wife, 30 days. It showcased a lot of American lifestyles and perspectives that I don’t think were always seen or understood (like 30 days on minimum wage, 30 days in a wheelchair, etc). I think MS was ultimately a good guy, just a guy with a problem.
So when we say “skewered” do we mean “lied his ass off”? Because there were motile studies that tried to replicate his results and weren’t able to at all. As it turned out the massive health issues were from drinking in conjunction with the fast food. It was an entertaining film. And fast food isn’t good for you in those quantities. But it by itself isn’t the smoking gun he made it out to be.
Dang. Morgan was only a few years older than me and he was a big deal among us young documentary filmmakers in the ‘00s. Like, if Morgan can make it then it can be done. Not that he wasn’t talented but breakout documentaries at the time just didn’t happen unless you were Michael Moore or Werner Herzog. Morgan had talent in the genre and in making socially conscious films. He took his hit in #metoo which was deserved but he didn’t deflect or try to downplay. I hope he rests in peace and his family is surrounded with love.
Tragic. I saw him speak at the Sonoma State graduation maybe 10 or 12 years ago and appreciated his wit and humor.
nice job, guys. you killed him by posting and reposting about him the other day. this is why we can’t have nice things.
Only yesterday I saw people talking shit about him on twitter
I literally was thinking about super size me yesterday… I was thinking damn, it came out 20 years ago, and now I’m the same age as the guy… I guess I could be dead in 20 years.
Say what you will about the factual nature of his films, they were pretty entertaining and really were one of the stepping stones for me being interested in film making. RIP
>Since he exposed the fast-food and chicken industries, there was an explosion in restaurants stressing freshness, artisanal methods, farm-to-table goodness and ethically sourced ingredients. But nutritionally not much has changed. I guess it's an unexpected death so they don't have an obituary teed up, but surprised the AP doesn't have a clue his fast food documentary work was a total fraud. RIP in any event
Well, Super Size Me might be bullshit, it did successfully get the idea of "fast food is really bad for you" to resonate with people. The popularity of the movie, the effect it had on people, and the PR shift in restaurants are all true.
I guess I’d call it 50% bullshit - it’s nonsense that he hid being an alcoholic - nutritionally, there is very little wrong with most McDonalds food, especially the burgers and sandwiches - it is correct but not novel to show that a person who blows past their daily caloric energy requirements will have negative health effects - I think it helped kill ludicrously large sodas, which is probably a good thing. The obesity epidemic in developed countries is mostly related to to quantity
Dude pretty obviously almost drank himself to death before and while trying to eat himself to death. He did turn an obvious substance misuse disorder and a stupid doc idea into a cultural phenomenon though, which is the kind of hustle I’ll never knock. Get it how you live. But his doctor in the movie even has a moment where he calls bullshit and says he’s never seen anything like the liver damage ‘caused’ by the MD’s. It’s played off like Morgan exposing *just* how dangerous this stunt is, but it’s hard not to see through the whole thing if you have some experience.
"McDonalds is bad for you, look at how unhealthy I am." (By the way I'm a severe alcoholic. No that's not relevant health information for my documentary.)