it unfortunately inspired a copycat documentary where the filmmaker suffered similar health issues https://youtu.be/0EIAN1YcEUI
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
137 points (100.0% liked)
People Twitter
7657 readers
413 users here now
People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
- Mark NSFW content.
- No doxxing people.
- Must be a pic of the tweet or similar. No direct links to the tweet.
- No bullying or international politcs
- Be excellent to each other.
- Provide an archived link to the tweet (or similar) being shown if it's a major figure or a politician.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Maybe this was just the experience in my small town, but you might as well have been telling people that going to church wasn't healthy. For many small town Americans burgers were considered a healthy diet and this documentary was literally shocking.
I mean, the burgers are the healthiest part of a McD's meal. The fries and soda are far worse, as they are unsatiating, drive hunger later in the day, and have almost no nutritional value beyond pure calories.
For the burger itself, remove the bun (bleached white flour), the ketchup (hfcs), mayo (vegetable oil), and cheese (whatever tf is in that cheese), and what you have left is pretty healthy. Fresh veggies. Some grilled meat.
Not a cheese expert or anything but as for "whatever tf is in that cheese" it's usually just real cheese mixed with water and emulsifiers. Worst thing about it is likely salt content and saturated fat content, afaik not really any worse than regular cheese.
"My liver values are through the roof! Look at my cholesterol!"
Yeah no shit sherlock, your triglycerides are super sized because of the vodka you drink daily
You know, looking back the shakes and the doctor telling him he has the liver of an alcoholic were some red flags 🤔
Tells you something about the impact it had that people would still try to discredit it all those years later! What's OP's point, eh? McD every day is gonna be healthy if you don't drink. Get outta here!
No, I think their point was more the fact that it's heralded by people as a great study but is massively flawed and with obvious outcomes. There wasn't really anything stringent done in the documentary. Any impact it had was purely from shit people already knew. He had no controlled experiments and was an active alcoholic during it.
My point, personally, is that people who reference Supersize Me in any capacity as a valid documentary or study is someone who is either uneducated or a fool. There's little difference in holding this documentary to your chest and referring to it or in doing the same thing to Joe Rogan or Bill Maher's Religulous. It's low-effort garbage that's not made for intellectual consumption but is still used for it anyway.
That's kinda problematic.
That's my point.
I'm going to give you an argument describing why i think you're correct but also why you're getting pushback. I'm basing this off the greek discursive appeal structures i've been reading about lately, because its fun to try to apply them here.
Firstly, if people say its a great 'scientific study' where you hear it, correct them. Its sad but thats often all we can reasonably do. If they refer to it as a great study in humanity, then maybe it is. After all Supersize Me was about the mostly unconsidered and wildly successful upselling technique that had passed into the culture of the time. So, what does that say about us?
Pathos
Supersize Me is an exercise mostly based on an appeal to Pathos. An argument based around an emotional appeal.
My stab at the key emotional switch employed would be turning the blasé attitude around the then common, comfortable upselling practice "would you like that supersized?", to a feeling of angst when those words are spoken. I think Supersize Me was largely successful in that appeal.
Emotional switch: Blasé->Angst.
I found Michael Moore's documentary styles also relied heavily on Pathos. So maybe the style was de rigeur at the time.
The big question is, did these documentary makers pass from persuasion into manipulation? This is the same as the question your asking when refering to his undisclosed alcoholism during filming. Which is why i think you're argument that the documentary wasn't fairly done is right. Theres a manipulation at its heart.
But that doesn't defeat the very real effects that emotional switch from blasé->angst about the practice had.
So a successful but manipulative documentary?
Logos
The argument i read in your comments assumes the documentary should primarily appeal to logos. Or a persuasion tactic based in logic. No controlled experiments for example.
While there are probably plenty of examples of this throughout the documentary, I wouldn't say this is the primary appeal he relies on.
The obvious conclusions of the poor diet is a good example of an appeal to logos. But not very persuasive on its own, because no one needed to watch it to draw the conclusion that poor diets equal poor health. At least most didn't.
Another thought,
Its a documentary, its not necessarily an exercise in absolute honesty. Few documentaries can claim such an authoritative place.
I think its maybe why Louis Theroux has belatedly become so highly respected. Not because he was authoritative in the beginning, but so much of what he presented has since been borne out. Maybe his documentary series matched the changing realisations of the times, so have had a kind of Kairos?
So in other words, the documentary was so successful in decrying the rampant hyperconsumption that was accepted in its time, that such rampant is no longer considered acceptable or normal. And on that basis, you consider it to be facile, obvious... "problematic"?
No shit its conclusions were already obvious to educated people. They were never the target demographic. Literally nobody references Supersize Me as a "study". It isn't, and it hasn't ever claimed to be. It's a shock story to grab the attention of the least well-informed segment of the population. That you're trying to call it out for not succeeding at being something it never claimed to be, and even more so for succeeding at the thing it did try to be, is not a problem with the documentary.
Whenver you come up with similarly hot takes, the comments always end up being filled with a you offering litany of obtuse bad reasoning.
So in other words, the documentary was so successful in decrying the rampant hyperconsumption that was accepted in its time, that such rampant is no longer considered acceptable or normal. And on that basis, you consider it to be facile, obvious... "problematic"?
No. It was based off of a lie and people don't mention that. But sure, invent whatever you want.
Literally nobody references Supersize Me as a "study". It isn't, and it hasn't ever claimed to be
I was literally shown it in school as a teenager while the entire time it was referred to as a study. I've also had numerous conversations with people who call it a study. Moreover, my post claimed that people TREAT it as a study. So, yes. People do claim it to be but I never even claimed that they did. You are not an infinite font of knowledge, you don't know everything.
Whenever you come up with similarly hot takes, the comments always end up being filled with a you offering litany of obtuse bad reasoning.
You've made one comment on one of my posts. A post where I said I didn't like chocolate plugs being introduced at the bottom of ice-cream cones that otherwise have no chocolate there-in. Both you and everyone else in that thread had a fucking meltdown at the concept of an ice-cream cone that had no chocolate anywhere else other than the plug. They exist. I live in Canada. While the meme was talking about Cornettos specifically, I was just generally talking about ice-cream cones. You, however, refused to accept this as possibility. Instead, you acted like your own failed understanding of what was being said as the reality of what was being said. Much like in the comment I'm replying to now, you projected fucking hard and got angry at me over it. It's boring and a waste of my time.
Your failed grasp at what is being said does not equate to reality. Reply to this or don't. I don't care. I'll never see it.
It wasn't a study. It was a stunt. The stunt worked. People ate less fast food, and laws were passed restricting the companies ability to market to children.
Not to mention that McD's discontinued the Super Size option.
I'm not saying it was a study, I'm saying people refer to it as one or treat it as one with alarming regularity.
Some people are stupid and they will believe anything that they see on TV. With how this documentary was framed as well, a lot of people just went about their lives assuming it was something that was reviewed and unflawed. There is a reason it was such a big deal when it came out he was an alcoholic during filming. About half of the documentary becomes completely worthless because we now know he was seriously lying during filming about what he was consuming. Which suddenly calls the entire thing into question because if he's willing to slide on something as major as that, then what is the value of the rest of it?
Wasn't exactly hard to discredit.
Thats the level of explaining USAmericans needed for this. Unless you directly show it to them in 1:1 the exact same way that they would experience it, they will not believe you. Even if you do, they will still call the film fake and CGI and whatever they like today.
the film is fake, you can read about it on the wikipedia page!
That's what the alcoholism bit in the op image is referring to, the shenanigans that were going on and not revealed to the audience.
The point he was trying to make is that people that eat McDonald's every day are unhealthy, and sure, the alcoholism on top of it made everything worse, but do we really think that MCD's is the only bad choice those people are making?
Like someone willing to eat a shitload of fast food (not for a movie) also is likely to have alcohol or substance use disorders, or eat unhealthy amounts of sugar, or not exercise.
I think a fair point was made regardless of the shenanigans.
Like someone willing to eat a shitload of fast food (not for a movie) also is likely to have alcohol or substance use disorders, o
Yes poor people are disgusting degenerates!
People eating high quality diet would never abuse drugs or booze for fun or otherwise.
Some classist bullshit here lol
Who said anything about poor people?
I know plenty of poor people or people that grew up lower class (including myself and my partner) who didn't eat fast food every day.
There's also plenty of rich people (like the orange moron) who very willingly eat fast food regularly.
Any of those people might have alcohol or substance use disorders, which are human conditions, and in no way mean a person is disgusting or undesirable.
And I'd argue that statistically, people who are more careful about their dietary intake, are also probably less likely to have alcohol dependence, but that's purely an empirical observation, I've never checked the data on that.
Well that doesn't magically make mcd's healthy. Especially fries and sugary soda.
i never said it did
I know. I'm saying it for those who will read, "it's fake" and immediately discount its message. We both know there are far too many people out there like that.
That is a funny coincidence then
I mean AFAIK he did checkups before and after. I thought it was reasonable to assume his ... drug habits... were the same before , during and after.
‘You’re getting liver damage from this diet. I don’t believe it. I’ve only ever seen this from alcoholics.’
... I have no comeback for this though.
It would not matter if a perfectly scientifically controlled version of this movie was done, people would still not stop bitching.
Stop eating this poisonous shit, it makes you fat as well as destroying your gut biome and hormone balance. Get over it!
Been a functioning alcoholic my whole adult life. Got my first bad test for liver enzymes. Looked the numbers up, holy shit that's fucking off the scale! Quit kratom powder for 2 weeks, keep drinking as normal, perfect retest.
Doc: "I'm so proud of you!" Uh....?
Another anecdote: Good friend crashed her liver with Tylenol. This was before it was widely known to fucking kill you. Hardcore alcoholic. 90-proof generic vodka, hiding bottles kinda alki. She got a transplant after being in a coma for 2-months, poster child for success! Doctors wanted her to speak at medical events as to how she no longer needed anti-rejection drugs after only 18-months. Imagine that!
Surgeon to family: "Believe it or not, her alcoholism had nothing to do with her liver failure."
All that to say, yeah, other factors we didn't evolve for can kill your liver. We been drinking for 10,000 years, the weak livers are largely weeded out.
Let's hear from Kurt Vonnegut!
"Beer, of course, is actually a depressant, but poor people will never stop hoping otherwise." I feel personally attacked. :(
Anyway, Julie got run over by a random dude while crossing the corner with her husband, my best friend. So it goes.
There a lot to unpack here…
When someone describes themselves as "functioning alcoholic" ya just stop reading
Nah, the drunker the poster the better the humor
Well our society says it acceptable to shit on people who drink too much but apparently not people who eat too much...
I guess drinking has more negative social externalities to warrant it
But from national economy perspective... Fat people are a huge strain on healthcare system.
This reminds me of a friend who told me about a decade ago that smoking "hadn't killed him yet".
Kurt's been gone for 3 years now. He was right, the smoking didn't get him, but his lungs packed it in during covid. Surprise, surprise.
Who the fuck is Julie?? I'm so confused
The person who got ran over.
Trever Moore's follow-up "Supersize Me, With Whiskey" was better.
RIP local sexpot.
it was the precursor do they modern day YouTube challenges.