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‘Our choices make us fat, not McDonald’s': U.S. science teacher mimics Super Size Me, says he lost 37 pounds, lowered his cholesterol
National Post Staff | January 6, 2014 3:45 PM ET
Most everyone will remember the cultural phenomenon that was Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me, but now a high school teacher in Iowa has put his own spin on the film, and says he lost weight eating nothing but food from the fast food giant for three months.
Spurlock’s 2004 film Super Size Me, in which the comedian/documentarian/Mansome producer made a film spectacle of eating nothing but McDonald’s fast food, in fairly large quantities, for a month straight, and shock-documenting his deteriorating health along the way.
Part of the Michael Moore school of stunt documentary, the film was also a straight-in-the-eye look at the issue of obesity in America, albeit one with an ax to grind — on the backs of big fast food corporations that Spurlock suggested were responsible for bulging U.S. waistlines to keep fattening their own wallets.
But 10 years have passed since, and critiques have arisen over that time about Spurlock’s methods, the slanted nature of his polemic, and the real reasons (and costs) behind obesity caused by fast food, and what can be done to prevent people gorging on high caloric dishes.
Enter: John Cisna of Ankeny, Iowa, a small, 45,000-person off-shoot of Des Moines, where Cisna is a science teacher at a local high school. The teacher has enlisted his students in a project that is now being talked about across North America. Why? Well, a simple quote from the man himself explains a lot:
“I can eat any food at McDonald’s (that) I want as long as I’m smart for the rest of the day with what I balance it out with,” Cisna said on KCCI News in his home state.
Cisna started by tripling the length of the Spurlock experiment, extending it to 90 days. And yes, he ate at a McDonald’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The big difference? Cisna attempted to stay within the dietary restrictions recommended by health professionals: fewer than 2,000 total calories per day, and allotted amounts for carbs, fat, protein and cholesterol. He even had a local McDonald’s so interested in the results, they chipped in the food for free for the three month study period.
And Cisna says he wasn’t eating all salads and oatmeal, either. He ate the Big Macs, the ice cream, the shakes, the fries, but within reason, and he also ate egg white breakfasts and 1% milk, both part of McDonald’s morning menu.
The results, as presented by Cisna in a film he put together on an amateur basis, are startling.
He says he lost 37 pounds while on the all McDonald’s diet, and improved his overall cholesterol while also lowering his bad, or LDL, rate.
Ultimately, Cisna’s point seems to have been a larger one about self-control, and its role in the obesity epidemic.
“The point behind this documentary is, ‘Hey, it’s [a] choice,” he told KCCI. “We all have choices. It’s our choices that make us fat not McDonald’s.”
National Post Staff | January 6, 2014 3:45 PM ET
Most everyone will remember the cultural phenomenon that was Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me, but now a high school teacher in Iowa has put his own spin on the film, and says he lost weight eating nothing but food from the fast food giant for three months.
Spurlock’s 2004 film Super Size Me, in which the comedian/documentarian/Mansome producer made a film spectacle of eating nothing but McDonald’s fast food, in fairly large quantities, for a month straight, and shock-documenting his deteriorating health along the way.
Part of the Michael Moore school of stunt documentary, the film was also a straight-in-the-eye look at the issue of obesity in America, albeit one with an ax to grind — on the backs of big fast food corporations that Spurlock suggested were responsible for bulging U.S. waistlines to keep fattening their own wallets.
But 10 years have passed since, and critiques have arisen over that time about Spurlock’s methods, the slanted nature of his polemic, and the real reasons (and costs) behind obesity caused by fast food, and what can be done to prevent people gorging on high caloric dishes.
Enter: John Cisna of Ankeny, Iowa, a small, 45,000-person off-shoot of Des Moines, where Cisna is a science teacher at a local high school. The teacher has enlisted his students in a project that is now being talked about across North America. Why? Well, a simple quote from the man himself explains a lot:
“I can eat any food at McDonald’s (that) I want as long as I’m smart for the rest of the day with what I balance it out with,” Cisna said on KCCI News in his home state.
Cisna started by tripling the length of the Spurlock experiment, extending it to 90 days. And yes, he ate at a McDonald’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The big difference? Cisna attempted to stay within the dietary restrictions recommended by health professionals: fewer than 2,000 total calories per day, and allotted amounts for carbs, fat, protein and cholesterol. He even had a local McDonald’s so interested in the results, they chipped in the food for free for the three month study period.
And Cisna says he wasn’t eating all salads and oatmeal, either. He ate the Big Macs, the ice cream, the shakes, the fries, but within reason, and he also ate egg white breakfasts and 1% milk, both part of McDonald’s morning menu.
The results, as presented by Cisna in a film he put together on an amateur basis, are startling.
He says he lost 37 pounds while on the all McDonald’s diet, and improved his overall cholesterol while also lowering his bad, or LDL, rate.
Ultimately, Cisna’s point seems to have been a larger one about self-control, and its role in the obesity epidemic.
“The point behind this documentary is, ‘Hey, it’s [a] choice,” he told KCCI. “We all have choices. It’s our choices that make us fat not McDonald’s.”
I'm not sure what I like about this more. The bi!ch slap of the hipster film maker, or the taste of the fries.
Yum.
ACK!
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