Super Size Me – The way to go?

Supersize Me is a very touching documentary by Morgan Spurlock, who plans to

survive solely on McDonalds Menu (McDiet) for one-month. This documentary
critically analyses that how McDonald’s in particular, and the fast-food industry in
general has managed to dodge their moral, ethical and CSR 1 by means of mere
advertising-puffs and other harsh capitalist devices. Spurlock slurred McDonald’s by
highlighting its contribution towards the obesity-epidemic, which is a global concern
already. This documentary documents that:

“Left unabated, obesity will surpass smoking as the leading cause of preventable
death in America2”

Two teenager’s sued McDonald’s for making them obese and their claim was refuted.
In response to the teenagers claim, the lawyers at McDonald’s said that such a chain
of causation cannot be established, and termed obesity an ‘intricate’ process. This
then became Spurlock’s motivation to explore the repercussions of McDiet on human
body. Spurlock’s health deteriorated alarmingly after a month long McDiet course.

Spurlock’s Physical and Psychological Well-being after 30 days of McDiet

Liver Damage Weight Gain ( 24.5lb)

Sexual Dysfunction Mood Swings

Fatigue McDiet Addiction

1
Corporate Social Responsibility
2
Super Size Me
 Super Size Me – The way to go? 2

This dilemma forced Spurlock to question “the appropriate boundaries between

personal and corporate responsibility3”. Back in the days, consumer’s interest and
wellbeing was his/her own concern. But now, the enlightened-consumers consider the
company’s CSR, and they want the corporations to be more and more responsible as
depicted by the Carroll’s four-part model4:

1) Philanthropic
Responsibilities:
Desired by society

2)Ethical
Responsibilities:
Expected by society

3)Legal
Responsibilities:
Required by society

4)Economic
Responsibilities:
Required by society

Though the law has evolved since then and the CPA5 in UK strives to augment and
protect consumer’s interest. The law seems to be stagnant when it comes to stopping
McDonald’s from selling high-fat, low-quality, and unhealthy food, which is partly
the cause of the epidemic of global-obesity. Instead of being ethically responsible,
McDonald’s has adopted the contrary stance. McDonald’s is pre-occupied with
ensuring control, efficiency, predictability, and calculability of its operations, which
in turn sparks the issue of ‘alienation’ where the workers and the consumers are
divorced from the means of production. Furthermore, Spurlock claims McDonald’s
did not provide sufficient nutritional information6 and this stance is not enough for
exercising personal responsibility when there is a lack of true and fair CSR. See the
McModel7 below:

3
Crane & Matten, pg. 12
4
Crane & Matten, pg 49.,http://www.csrquest.net/imagefiles/CSR%20Pyramid.jpg
5
Consumer Protection Act
6
Super Size Me
7
http://myweb.stedwards.edu/mikef/dimenz.htm
 Super Size Me – The way to go? 3

Predictability Uniform products and services • Profits

Over the time and in all locales
• Balance
Efficiency Best available way to get from Sheet
Being hungry to being full

Control Substitution of nonhuman for • Finance

Human technology
• Market share
Calculability Quantitative aspects of products
Sold and services offered.

Global Epidemic of Obesity

 Super Size Me – The way to go? 4

McDonald’s evolved around the belief that “Look after the customer and the business
will take care of itself8”. Their prime goal was to satisfy the consumer. However, the
study by Spurlock reveals a shift from customer-orientated business to a profit-
orientated one. In their pursuit of maximizing the shareholder’s-value, McDonald’s
has neglected the aftermath of its practices on the physical and psychological
wellbeing of the consumers.

The fast-food industry is the arena, where the battle between the consumers and
corporations take place, and it’s ought to be scrutinized. When scrutinized
McDonald’s analytically, the result is that the food served by McDonald’s contains
double the amount of calories when compared to a healthy diet portion (High Energy
Density)9. McDonald’s and other fast-food chains are impeding the human-bodies to
function to their true-potential by injecting abnormal and synthetic chemicals into
them. From an ethical stance (theory), McDonald’s come under the philosophical-
umbrella of Adam Smith’s Egoism, as McDonald’s maximizes the corporations
selfish-interests by “focusing on the outcomes for the decision maker10”.

McDonald’s can be branded as a corporation that believes in egoism ‘based on

selfishness’ as Crane & Matten argue:

“The selfish person is insensitive to other11”

To leverage their selfish-interests, McDonald’s has maintained its presence by

masterminding, and flooding key geographical-locations12 with McDonald’s outlets.
Hence providing an easy access to unhealthy food, which is making possible the curse
of obesity. McDonalds corporate-culture, and its fundamentals seems to stem from
Egoism, as testified by McDonald’s UK Chief “McDonald’s prime motivation is to
make money13”. This manifests that McDonald’s is more busy in looking after the
shareholders (Economic Responsibilities) and it is intentionally neglecting the reality

8
Super Size Me
9
http://chainoffools.org/fact_negeffect.html
10
Crane & Matter pg. 93
11
Crane & Matten, pg. 93
12
83 McDonald’s in Manhattan
13
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/investing-and-markets/article.html?
in_article_id=414483&in_page_id=3
 Super Size Me – The way to go? 5

that how society is becoming obese. Out of first hand experience, it happened to me
and can happen to anyone else, may be its on your way too14!

Karl Marx argued that capitalism gives birth to exploitation, where exploitation means
to utilize and harm someone else for selfish purposes15. This is what McDonald’s
reflects, making the present and future generations obese and unhealthy for the want
of their self-pursuit of profit-maximization.

It is evident that McDonald’s prioritizes economic responsibilities and their social-

role is best described by Milton Friedman’s statement that “The social responsibility
of a business is to increase its profits16”. The documentary documents that:

"The bottom line, they're a business, no matter what they say, and by selling you
unhealthy food, they make millions, and no company wants to stop doing that.17"

McDonalds: “Any processing that foods undergo make them more dangerous than
unprocessed foods.18”

The above mentioned statements depict that how strongly McDonald’s is tied to
Egoism. This is manifested in the documentary Corporation: “Corporations are
unable to act in any other way than to selfishly pursue their own self-interests 19”.
Furthermore, Supersize Me informs us that philanthropic and ethical responsibilities
are absent from the McDonald’s corporate culture, customs and traditions.

McDonald’s knew that introducing McNuggets would inflate their financial muscle,
however, at the same time they knew about the harsh effects of McNuggets on a
human-body. Besides, what once was called ‘a portion of fries’ is now known as the
small or Kids serving. McDonald’s redesigned its Menu to promote the Supersized
Meals. They are unhealthier, and abundant in calorie and fat-content, they do make
millions for the corporation, but super-sized meals contradict the concept of business
14
Since I came to this country (Sep 2004), my waist increased to 36” from 30”, solely due to intake of
McDonald’s and Chicken Cottage.
15
Social Context of Work, Year 1 Module by G.H
16
Crane & Matten, pg. 43
17
Super Size Me
18
Super Size Me
19
Crane & Matten, pg. 46
 Super Size Me – The way to go? 6

ethics. As Crane and Matten argue that moral right and wrong is different from
commercial or financial right and wrong20. It is evident that McDonald’s failed to
address the issues that are morally ‘right’ and succeeded to inject fatty-acids into the
human body.

This documentary emphasizes the fact that how our habits and selection criteria
evolves in response to commercial-advertisement and psychological entrapments.
McDonald’s has got a hefty advertisement budget and uses all advertisement-channels
to trap the consumers. They do niche-marketing to exploit the innocence of the
innocent. It is due to their marketing and advertisement strategy that McDonald’s
feeds 47 million people a day, covering over 31000 food-outlets across six
continents21. These mere advertising-puffs and psychological-techniques employed by
McDonald’s have unpleasant repercussions on general public and prove to be dire for
children’s health. As the documentary documents:

“One in every three children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their
lifetime”

2001 Direct Media Expenditure

1.4E+12
1.2E+12
McDonalds
1E+12
8E+11 Pepsi
6E+11
4E+11 Hersheys
2E+11
0 5 time a day fruit and
Direct Media Advertisement veg
Expenditure $

Spurlock claims that before most children can speak they can recognize
McDonald’s22. He testifies his claim in the documentary as children were not able to
identify the picture of Jesus but were acquainted with the picture of Ronald
McDonald. When the target-audience consists of children, corporations like
McDonald’s employ cartoons and attractive artifacts so that the children can
recognize that particular brand every time they see it, and the corporations keep on

20
Crane & Matten, pg. 5
21
http://www.mcdonalds.ca/en/aboutus/faq.aspx
22
An average child is assaulted with 10,000 advertisements per year (Super Size Me)
 Super Size Me – The way to go? 7

reinforcing their messages by creative digital techniques. “McDonald's distributes

more toys per year than Toys-R-Us23.”This is how McDonald’s exploits the innocence
of children. When they are young the play-area (entertainment) will keep them
coming back, but as they grow-older, it is the drug-effect of McDiet and nostalgia
that will keep them coming back for more.

Supersize Me, and the lawsuits filed against McDonald’s sparked the issue of ethical
and CSR of McDonald’s.

The more harsh dilemma is that how Fast Food retailers in general, and McDonald’s
in particular influence the government legislation to condition the bills in their favor.
McDonald’s exploits the services of GMA and lobbyists to make sure that bills are
passed in its favor and nothing goes the other way round. Whilst more and more
people are troubling their lives with obesity, the American legislation passed the
Cheese Burger Bill in 2004, where the government deprived the society of their
fundamental right of suing the corporations for significantly contributing towards
their obesity.

This documentary is criticized on the basis that if one stuffs himself with McDonald’s
three times a day, for thirty-day, then its not natural. However, the theme underlying
Spurlock’s experiment is that it does harms and contributes significantly towards
obesity. As the GP in the documentary said that one shouldn’t eat fast food at all, and
the other doctor said that if one does eat fast-food occasionally, then one should offset
the harm by exercise and healthy food intake.

“Supersize Me obviously raises issues around the responsibilities of firms to their

consumers, but it also addresses broader questions about the societal-impacts of the
food-industry, the unintended consequences of marketing-practices, and the
boundaries of social-responsibility appropriate for food corporations. At another level,
the film also raises issues around consumer rights and responsibilities24”

23
Super Size Me
24
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/nubs/ICCSR/pdf/FilmSeriesNotes/SupersizeMe.pdf
 Super Size Me – The way to go? 8

The commercial response of McDonald’s to this documentary was that it eliminated

the Super-size option, and introduced so called healthy-alternatives. But McDonald’s
is displaying extreme selfishness as it is thinking of dropping the salads from the
menu, the reason being low salad sales25. In a nutshell, McDonald’s global
exploitative powers and its deficient corporate responsibility are devoted to augment
its balance-sheet at the expense of consumer’s physical and psychological well-being.

Appendix A

25
www.finance.google.com
 Super Size Me – The way to go? 9

Why is Obesity so important?

Obesity leads to:

Hypertension
Coronary Heart Disease
Adult Onset Diabetes
Stroke
Gall Bladder Disease
Osteoarthritis
Sleep Apnea
Respiratory Problems
Endometrial, Breast, Prostate and Colon Cancers
Dyslipidemia, steatohepatitis, insulin resistance
breathlessness
Asthma
Hyperuricaemia
Reproductive hormone abnormalities,
Polycystic ovarian syndrome
Impaired fertility
Lower back pain
(Source: Super Size Me)

Egoism:

“An action is morally right if the decision maker freely decides in order to pursue
either their (short-term) desires or their(long-term) interests26”

Bibliography

Crane & Matten, (2007) Business Ethics, Oxford, 2nd Edition

Lectures and Tutorials by D. Bevan, 2007

26
Crane & Matten, pg. 93
 Super Size Me – The way to go? 10

URL’s

http://chainoffools.org/fact_negeffect.html
http://www.mcdonalds.ca/en/aboutus/faq.aspx
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/investing-and-markets/article.html?
in_article_id=414483&in_page_id=3
http://www.csrquest.net/imagefiles/CSR%20Pyramid.jpg
www.wikipedia.com
http://myweb.stedwards.edu/mikef/dimenz.htm
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/nubs/ICCSR/pdf/FilmSeriesNotes/SupersizeMe.pdf
www.finance.google.com

Documentary

Supersize Me, by Morgan Spurlock