> Besides just gaining weight, the movie also claimed that Spurlock got major liver damage and started suffering from a range of mental health issues, all as a result of eating fast food. Notably, none of the people who replicated the experiment suffered from these problems.
> Years after the movie’s release Spurlock admitted to being a lifelong alcoholic, despite claiming otherwise in the documentary. Alcohol abuse can easily explain the liver damage, and alcohol withdrawal during the filming of the documentary also explains the sudden mental health problems he was experiencing.
Hmm, I'm not sure what to think with this new information.
I really enjoyed the documentary when I watched it as a kid. But I did remember thinking it was weird he puked so early in the film. I brushed it off as "everyone is different", and forgot about it.
> But I did remember thinking it was weird he puked so early in the film. I brushed it off as "everyone is different", and forgot about it.
That's one of the few things I still remember from it, and the takeaway I had was "well, he's eating past the point of nausea, of course he's going to puke." And the fact that he accepted any time they offered to "supersize", just pointing out how hard fast food pushes excess calories. Kind of the point of the documentary, really, that fast food is out of control in this country and needs to be regulated.
He was also gaining more weight than the laws of thermodynamics allow based on how many calories he was supposedly eating. Alcohol has a lot of calories.
Not a doctor fwiw, but elevated ALT and AST levels often comes with being overweight and that could be seen as liver damage. I'm willing to give MS the benefit of the doubt on this claim.
I just thought it was a bad reaction to a change of diet. You can feel bad just from a few days of bad food. Can't imagine 3 meals a day for that kind of stuff.And ofc these were large portions for a (by BMI standards) very slight overweight man.
Umm who in America doesn’t know someone personally who has visible liver damage from fast food? I know multiple families where 4/4 people have it. Why would he make that up? He didn’t even go diabetic.
Even during the course of the documentary, at the end his doctors were saying his body was seeming to adapt to his new diet so always found it unsatisfactory that it just ended right there.
It's unfortunate that on the day of his death all I can really think about is how troubled the man was, between dealing with alcoholism, cheating on his past wives / gfs, the sexual assault allegations, and resigning from his company because of just how negative his public image had become. He became something of a household name because of a misleading documentary that was arguably more about the dangers of alcoholism rather than fast food.
Strange processing the death of someone with such a mixed legacy.
The blog post mentioned in the nbcnews link mentions more of his problems in addition to alcoholism, adultery/infidelity - broken family during childhood, sexual abuse, depression, etc.
A society of overweight and obese people giving enormous attention on how the effects of eating McDonalds everyday cannot be replicated. Please let's snapshot everything so the future generations can laugh at how we turned into a parody.
Well the problem is that he stuffed his face with absurd amounts of calories everyday. Of course he got fat. He was eating like 5k calories a day. No one is doing that on accident cause they didnt know how big a supersize fry was.
So yes, its a super disingenious doc that is laughably transparent in its pandering to people just like you who want to make fun of obesity and trivialize it.
Not only that it has the same issues as lying about Covid in the name of “public safety” - when people find out it’s a lie they’ll trust the next thing you say even if it’s 100% true.
wholien|1 year ago
> Years after the movie’s release Spurlock admitted to being a lifelong alcoholic, despite claiming otherwise in the documentary. Alcohol abuse can easily explain the liver damage, and alcohol withdrawal during the filming of the documentary also explains the sudden mental health problems he was experiencing.
Hmm, I'm not sure what to think with this new information.
I really enjoyed the documentary when I watched it as a kid. But I did remember thinking it was weird he puked so early in the film. I brushed it off as "everyone is different", and forgot about it.
npsimons|1 year ago
That's one of the few things I still remember from it, and the takeaway I had was "well, he's eating past the point of nausea, of course he's going to puke." And the fact that he accepted any time they offered to "supersize", just pointing out how hard fast food pushes excess calories. Kind of the point of the documentary, really, that fast food is out of control in this country and needs to be regulated.
maximus-decimus|1 year ago
pknomad|1 year ago
web3-is-a-scam|1 year ago
https://youtu.be/uOyjzE1vcD4?si=6sejNKCk-VkIzwGo
Also RIP Trevor Moore, another tragedy.
torginus|1 year ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EIAN1YcEUI
johnnyanmac|1 year ago
ggddv|1 year ago
refurb|1 year ago
Hopefully this is an isolated event.
/s
PM_me_your_math|1 year ago
[deleted]
legitster|1 year ago
Bjorkbat|1 year ago
It's unfortunate that on the day of his death all I can really think about is how troubled the man was, between dealing with alcoholism, cheating on his past wives / gfs, the sexual assault allegations, and resigning from his company because of just how negative his public image had become. He became something of a household name because of a misleading documentary that was arguably more about the dangers of alcoholism rather than fast food.
Strange processing the death of someone with such a mixed legacy.
canucker2016|1 year ago
see https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sqc244
password54321|1 year ago
DontchaKnowit|1 year ago
So yes, its a super disingenious doc that is laughably transparent in its pandering to people just like you who want to make fun of obesity and trivialize it.
refurb|1 year ago