If you have not yet seen Super Size Me, you should. A lot of people have told me of the “D’uh!” factor, but the movie is not just watching a guy eat McDonalds for 30 days. It’s much deeper, much more interesting than that. And much more terrifying.
His enlistment of three doctors to monitor his health during the experiment is the part of the movie I enjoyed most. Watching their faces turn from amusement to concern to outright alarm is astonishing. “This isn’t possible,” one of them tells him. Then, with no hint of humor at all, but the aura of the Hyppocratic Oath, he tells our trusted narrator, in no uncertain terms, “You have to stop now or you’re going to die.”
I watched it for a second time this week. Then, I emptied my refrigerator and re-packed it with fruit, vegetables, fish and chicken.
And now, in that movie’s wake, comes a dramatization of one of the scariest books I’ve ever read. Fast Food Nation has kept me away from fast food as best it can. I slipped from time to time, but the double whammy jumbo sized slam to the gut that Super Size Me and this book gave me has sworn me off fast food for good. The movie is directed by Richard Linkleter, which proves it will be astonishing.
It’s time for me to make some changes in my life. It seems to me that changing what I eat is a good start.