[npsimons]

> 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.

[tdeck]

The fact that he force fed himself kinda weakens the point though, doesn't it? Force feeding yourself 5,000 calories a day even when you feel sick is obviously going to make you sick.

[jrmg]

It wouldn’t if you were already larger.

I don’t get the ‘eating 5000 calories of anything would make you ill’ argument against the movie. That was sort of the whole point. At the time, fast food chains, and McDonald’s in particular, were pushing large (and the defunct supersize) meals all the time. That this was dangerous, especially for people who didn’t really think about it and trusted the companies, was the entire point of the movie.

Note that things have changed since then - arguably as a result of, or at least accelerated by, the movie. Supersize meals disappeared soon after it, salads were introduced (yes, you can argue they’re still high calorie), and on the whole fast food places are much less aggressively pushing the larger meals than they were in the early 2000s. I would say there’s more awareness of the importance of eating healthily among the general population too (not that that seems to be having ideal results…)

[tshaddox]

I'm confused about why you're confused. The point of the movie was definitely not to give the audience the shocking realism that if you're force feeding yourself to the point of vomiting, you're probably doing something wrong. This aspect of the movie only lessens the actual argument of the movie (except that it makes good headlines and thus probably drove the majority of the media coverage and general interest in the documentary).

[JohnBooty]

    At the time, fast food chains, and McDonald’s 
    in particular, were pushing large (and the 
    defunct supersize) meals all the time. That 
    this was dangerous [...]

It's still a little bit ridiculous.

A human being should be eating 90 meals per month, give or take. If more than 1 or 2 of those are fast food, that's the problem.

To what standard should we be holding a restaurant meal? "Is it healthy for a person to eat 90 of these meals per month?" doesn't seem like a useful or realistic thing to do.

[hmcq6]

> A human being should be eating 90 meals per month, give or take. If more than 1 or 2 of those are fast food, that's the problem.

3 meals a day has nothing to do with health and everything to do with marketing. If the way we eat had any ties to common sense we wouldn't be eating our largest meal at the end of the day when we have nothing left to do except sleep.

[ethbr1]

> If more than 1 or 2 of those are fast food, that's the problem.

Given that full service grocery store access is area-income dependent in the US, it's a complicated situation.

[JohnBooty]

"Food deserts" (areas with no access to fresh food) are a huge problem, yeah.

Also, economically struggling people often can't prepare their own food, even if given groceries for free: they may be physically disabled, they may be unhoused, they may be unable to afford utilities or appliances, etc.

However, I think that altering the offerings of fast-food restaurants is not even remotely a suitable way to address that.

[tdeck]

> I don’t get the ‘eating 5000 calories of anything would make you ill’ argument against the movie.

Good thing that's not the argument I'm making in my comment. The argument I'm making is about forcing yourself to eat more than you want to while the very act of eating is making you feel sick. That's what Spurlock did in the movie; it's not representative of any significant population of people.

[rightbyte]

> salads were introduced (yes, you can argue they’re still high calorie),

I haven't tried those, but surely it is easier to overeat on fries and hamburgers compared to a salad?

[seadan83]

I was curious, looks like the equivalent (calorie-wise) of fries & a double cheeseburger is 1KG of salad.*

So yes, quite hard to overeat salad. Plus, eating that much salad would give a lot of nutrition, and throwing some beans & hemp hearts in would give you a lot of protein too.

Further to consider, it's not uncommon for people to eat the extra large fries and have two double cheeseburgers. The comparison to trying to overeat salad is only more favorable. We can also go furthe rand think of"fancy" burger places like Red Robin, there are several burgers on their menu that are over 2k calories.

* For the back of the napkin math - according to google, there's 815 calories in a fries and a double cheeseburger. For salad, I used this house salad recipe [1] as reference with 148 calories in a 170g serving

[1] https://www.nutritionix.com/food/house-salad

[grecy]

Don’t you remember the closing act of the documentary?

The salad with dressing and nuts has more calories than a Big Mac!!

[npsimons]

> I haven't tried those, but surely it is easier to overeat on fries and hamburgers compared to a salad?

This reads like someone who might not have been in America much. Friend, let me introduce you to ranch "dressing": https://www.flickr.com/photos/rachelannpoling/7797400016

And yeah, the vegetables aren't the problem here - the problem is everything has to be sugar-coated (yes, even "savory" things like ranch dressing) for people to eat it, and then they drench everything from wings to burgers in it.

[jrmg]

Yeah, I agree with you.

The argument is that they’re ‘misleading’ because the _dressings_ that are provided with them are surprisingly high in calories. Like, a standard size salad with all the provided dressing is not lower calorie than one of the more traditional menu options - and people may not realize that.

I’d say the salads are pretty good BTW - better than you might think a fast food place would do.

[xhkkffbf]

You are correct. They're better than you would expect -- and the price is reasonable.

[johnnyanmac]

Think the point is that it's real easy to force feed yourself 5000 calories if it's 2500 calorie meals that don't fill you up for the day.

honestly the burger itself isn't too bad. Double quarter pounder is 750 calories, really filling. But tripling that from fries and drink is the real killer. You can probably lose weight from McDonald's simply by only getting water or unsweetened tea for a drink, and limiting yourself to small sides.

[tdeck]

> it's real easy to force feed yourself 5000 calories

No it's not. If you have to force it, it's by definition not "easy". Overindulging in something is different from forcing yourself to do it. My problem with the movie is that it takes a very strange scenario (man forces himself to eat to the point of puking) and acts like that's teaching us lessons about the broader population, none of whom are doing that. It might be bad for you to eat unhealthy things that feel pleasurable, but it's obviously worse to do it so much that it's become an ordeal.

[johnnyanmac]

"ease" is relative here. And if you really care about that debate you can find some social media challenge posts fantasizing about how you'd consume 10000+ calories for 1b dollars. I wouldn't drone much more on that point past calorie density being an undertalked about issue with these "calories in, calories out" crowd.

Main point: consuming 3000 excess calories a day roughly equates to an average person gaining 5 points a week, 20 pounds a month (which tracks with the documentary). That is extreme. But think of 1000 excess calories (2 pounds a week) and do it over a year. We know which one is worse, and we know which one is more common. And we know it doesn't just stop after a year.

I think there's merit in demonstrating an extreme experiment (especially in this day of social media) and using it to demonstrate what happens from less extreme, but longer term bad habits.

[giantg2]

"that fast food is out of control in this country and needs to be regulated."

Eh, I would rather see change in the area of education and alternatives than just food type/portion/etc regulation. The education can apply to multiple foods and not just the pariah of the day. Ingredient studies and approvals/disapproval would be an area of regulation that I would support though.

[kiba]

Having the declarative knowledge then being able to practice it. I am sure most people know that they are supposed to eat 'healthy'. It can only be one part of a larger program to combat obesity.

[giantg2]

Many people don't know just how unhealthy it really is. Many also don't know how to make or choose their own healthy food. It's mostly about habits. It's fine to eat a super-sized meal rarely if you were hungry enough and extremely active, but it's more of an exception.

If we extend this to alcohol, then we should ban all alcohol. Alcohol is generally fine in moderation or occasional use. But if we need to ban things because a minority of the population misuses it, then we will have an extremely long list (butter, sausage, steak, etc).

[ZeroGravitas]

Tho person you replied to didn't say 'ban' they said 'regulate' and 'a larger plan to combat obesity', and your counter of alcohol is heavily regulated across the world. Some have government run shops, others have advertising bans, or mandatory health warnings, alcohol content labelling and so on. And probably in general should be more regulated.

[giantg2]

It read like a ban to me. Other than age restrictions, which vary wildy, it doesn't seem like alcohol regulations have done anything to prevent unhealthy use.

[npsimons]

> It read like a ban to me.

Then you need to increase your reading comprehension. I nowhere said or implied "ban".

Or you need to examine your biases; are you perchance a libertarian? Or really right-leaning in any way. If you're American, chances are very good the answer is 'yes'.