by Jillian Fell

Created on: October 14, 2008

We all know that fast food is bad for us, but just how bad is it? Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock reveals a somewhat surprising truth: eaten in the wrong amounts, it could potentially kill you. Though liver and kidney failure is usually the last thing on our minds when we order a meal at our local fast food joint, this is actually something that frequent fast food eaters need to take into consideration.

Essentially, Morgan Spurlock is taking his idea from the court case of the two teenage girls who sued McDonald's. McDonald's lawyers said that if the girls (or rather their lawyers) "could prove that the company encouraged customers to eat at their restaurants every single day for every single meal and that doing so could be unreasonably dangerous" then they might have a case. So he sets out to see if this could indeed be proven.

Though Morgan's 30-day diet of McDonald's seems extreme, his studies show that there are people who eat fast food at least once a week to every day and according to most nutritionists, once a month to once a year is all it should ever be eaten. So his experiment wasn't that far-fetched and even the doctors he visited before, during, and after the diet were surprised by how much his organs degenerated in the relatively short amount of time that he ate exclusively at McDonald's.

His findings concluded that at the end of just 30 days his liver and kidneys were failing at a rapid rate and the doctors all said that if he kept eating like this he would die. Again, we go back to the statistic revealing people who eat fast food frequently and this news is taken in a different light. But just how many people eat at McDonald's this often? According to the documentary, 72% of the people that eat at McDonald's eat there at least once a week to several times a week.

The mix of interviews, facts and statistics splashed on the screen, and narration of the director gives the viewer a full picture of the stated argument and keeps your attention from fading through the 100 minutes of documentation. All sides of the spectrum are looked at: lawyers, teachers, food company lobbyists, nutritionists, doctors all give their opinion on the food industry and how society eats.

This film is definitely worthwhile to watch. Not only is it entertaining, it's enlightening even for someone who doesn't even eat at McDonald's because it makes you think about other fast food and restaurant choices. If McDonald's is this bad for you, then Wendy's, Burger King, and KFC probably aren't any healthier.

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