"Super Size Me" filmmaker Morgan Spurock spoke at the University on Thursday. The film follows Spurlock as he eats nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days.
Speaking to a large Princeton audience at McCosh Hall six months after his movie's release at the invitation of the Student Health Advisory Board, Spurlock described his adventure to documentary stardom.
He said he got the idea for "Super Size Me" on Thanksgiving Day of 2002 as he was lying on the couch watching television.
At the time, two obese girls were suing McDonald's for causing their health problems, and Spurlock watched as a reporter interviewed a McDonald's spokesperson for the evening news.
The spokesperson denied any link between McDonald's and obesity, calling fast food "perfectly healthy."
"I said, come on," Spurlock told the McCosh audience. "If it's that good for me, shouldn't I be able to eat it for 30 days straight without getting sick?
"Shouldn't I be able to live out the American dream of overeating and underexercising? . . . Then I turned to my vegan girlfriend on the couch and said, 'Honey, I've got a great idea!' "
Over the month of filming, the 6'2" New Yorker gained 25 pounds, saw his cholesterol skyrocket to 230, causing his organs such damage that his doctor compared his liver to "paté."
While chronicling his spiral into sickness, Spurlock illuminated the legal, financial and physical costs he claimed fast food inflicts on America.
Spurlock acknowledged he could have chosen any fast food chain for his experiment — though he said he "might be dead if [he'd] chosen White Castle" — but said he chose McDonald's because "they influence the entire industry."
"When McDonald's got the Supersize option, they all got Supersize," Spurlock said, citing industry envy of McDonald's astronomical sales.
"I picked the one company that could make a real difference in the industry."
Evidence of such a difference has already appeared.
Six weeks after "Super Size Me" premiered, McDonald's eliminated its Supersize option, but the company says it had nothing to do with the movie.
Spurlock said critics who call his experiment "unrealistic" because "nobody eats this much fast food" are taking a myopic view.
"People don't eat McDonald's three meals a day," he said, "But I know [people] who eat McDonald's for breakfast, Taco Bell for lunch and Domino's for dinner."
Spurlock also said that people who say his weight gain resulted from large portion sizes, not the food itself, are ignoring his other health problems, which included early symptoms of diabetes and heart disease.
In an interview, Spurlock said he plans to continue bringing new issues to the public.
"I've got a whole laundry list of things I see wrong with America, and I'm going to bring them out." he said.
Spurlock is currently developing a TV series called "Thirty Days" that will examine a different issue, such as religion in America, outsourcing and abortion, each week. The show will debut on FX this summer.
Spurlock also plans to make more documentaries.
"This is a fantastic time for new mediaa resurgence. We are starved for information." he said. "Super Size Me, Fahrenheit 9/11, The Corporation all made over a million dollars at the box office. A few years ago, it would have been unheard of for a documentary to make one million."
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