Stewart's Super Sized Smokescreen
by John Drury
It would be very easy to jump on the bandwagon and write a column on the upcoming legislative session and the spirit of cooperation that they all claim to be embarking on. Instead, I want to use this week’s column to point out and respond to a “Guest View” published in the Mason City Globe Gazette on Sunday, January 9, by Republican Iowa Senate Leader Stewart Iverson from Dows.
In this “Guest View,” instead of talking about his goals for the upcoming session and his vision for the future of Iowa, he—for some reason—decides to write a review of the film Super Size Me, by Morgan Spurlock.
Super Size Me is a documentary on our nation’s eating habits, the growing obesity problem in the United States, and the role that fast food plays in it. In the film, Morgan Spurlock sets out on a 30-day mission to eat nothing but McDonald’s. Three meals a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner, all at McDonald’s. He only eats value meals and he only “super sized” the meal if asked. He also got the amount of exercise that the average American gets. He consulted with three doctors and tracks the decline of his health on a high fat, low exercise, and fairly typical American diet.
There are many chilling statistics in the film but for those of
you who haven’t yet seen it, I won’t mention most of them. Suffice to
say that America is the number one fattest nation in the world with more than 60%
of adults either overweight or obese. Obesity is second only to smoking
in preventable deaths in America. And there are 400,000 deaths per year
in overweight or obesity related illnesses. In Senator Iverson’s view, the movie is “radical activism taken to a new level.” He expresses concern about Mr. Spurlock’s plan to tour the nation’s high schools with this film, specifically his upcoming stop in Ames on September 30 of this year. He sums it up by saying “what parents need to know about this film is that it not only undercuts the most important single element in health and nutrition education, being personally responsible for making healthy choices for balanced diet and maintaining an active lifestyle, it brings with it a disgusting view of profanity, sexual content and gross imagery.”
I would think that parents would rather know that according to a professor at the Yale University Center for Eating Disorders, we live in a toxic environment. He defines a toxic environment as one where there is constant access to cheap, fat-laden foods, one where gas stations sell more candy than gas, and one where there are 3 million soda vending machines; one for every 97 Americans. They should also know that if current trends continue, one out of every three children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetimes. Oops, I wasn’t going to mention more statistics.
In one of the more telling parts of the movie, there is an interview with a lobbyist from The Grocery Manufacturer’s of America, a very powerful lobby with two main objectives in mind: no government agency is going to even suggest that anyone eat less of their products, and no government is going to pass unfavorable legislation for the food industry. The lobbyist interviewed admitted that they are part of the problem.
Perhaps we now know why Senator Iverson spoke out on the movie. It’s a classic example of throwing up a smokescreen. Instead of talking openly about a very important issue, he is suppressing the discussion by calling the movie a “so-called documentary” full of filth and not worthy of watching. He closes the guest view by asking people to “join me in doing everything you can to reject this brand of “education” and instead pursue genuine health education that equips our kids with the tools they need to make smart choices and lead active, healthy lives.”
Senator, I agree, and I expect you to introduce legislation this session that will accomplish this noble objective. There is only one state in the nation that requires mandatory physical education in K-12 and that is Illinois. Strangely enough, fund-raisers and private donations mostly fund that program.
For anyone that’s curious, the movie is rated PG-13. In the Senator’s view, the disgusting parts of the film are scenes showing Spurlock vomiting, receiving a rectal exam, and his girlfriend’s descriptions of their sex life post McDiet. There is also footage of a gastrointestinal bypass surgery. Granted, I could have done without the brief rectal exam footage but overall, the film is an eye-opening look at a very big (no pun intended) problem in America.
