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Gentlemen,

The consumption of McD's for 30 days is only for shock value-- his liver enzyme reading goes off the chart, weight gain is noticeable. More interesting is the piece from his vegan girlfriend about how Mr. Happy doesn't work so well anymore, he's constantly tired.

The real value of the film for me was the combination of his experiment with data about the amount of obesity in the United States, and the proliferation of fast food restaurants. Taken together, the film made me realize that portion control and control of the insulin response are two things that are, if you believe the data, lost on a sizable (pun intended) piece of the US population.

For all the ruckus (see my thread on pharma costs) about the escalating cost of health care, people seem to ignore the comorbidities that come from overweight- and these are a major cause of high health care costs.

I really thought it was great that he didn't turn the movie into an anti-corporate attack, even though that would have made many of the folks on this board happy no doubt. Instead, it was more about raising awareness of the potentially harmful effects of fast food, and allowing people to make their own choices about what to eat. Which, if there's every going to be a reduction in obesity in this country, is what's going to drive it, NOT plaintiff's lawyers, NOT government regulation.

Also I thought Spurlock tastefully ignored more shocker issues, like the hackneyed "rain forest deforestation," "meat is murder/animal cruelty" or the time-honored "restaurant cleanliness" cliches. This helped bring the tone of the film into the mainstream where a guy like me could ENJOY it rather than dismiss it as a polemic like those that spew from that execrable lardbutt known as Michael Moore.