Filmmaker pushes his own envelope

PULLMAN -- Independent filmmakers often risk just about everything for their craft.

Cars are sold, homes are mortgaged, studio executives are hustled and change is picked up off the street so an artist's vision can live.

But film school dropout Morgan Spurlock went even further. He risked his health -- and in the opinion of more than one doctor, his life -- making one of the most successful documentaries of the year.

In "Super Size Me," Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald's food and drink for a month, just to see what it would do to his body.

"Somewhere around 2012 I'll be ready for a Big Mac," Spurlock, 33, said Tuesday before a discussion of his film at Washington State University.

He hasn't had a bite from the fast food giant since he finished his film a year ago. And who could blame him? He gained 25 pounds. His cholesterol shot up from a healthy 168 to an artery-clogging 225. He suffered mood swings and, to the chagrin of his vegan girlfriend, sexual dysfunction.

And according to one doctor, who said he was in perfect health before the experiment, "your liver is now like pate. You are sick."

Possibly most disturbing, in the middle of the night of his 21st day on the McDonald's diet, he awoke with heart palpitations. Everyone told him to stop, that he'd made his point and it wasn't worth continuing.

But one call to his big brother, Craig, in West Virginia inspired him to finish.

" 'Morgan' he said, 'people eat this ---- their whole lives. Do you think it's going to kill you in nine days?' " Spurlock said with a laugh.

Finish he did, and none to soon for the three doctors keeping track of his health. All three had predicted negative, but minimal changes to Spurlock's overall health. But after a few mid-month tests, they began pleading with him to quit.

Spurlock said he wasn't hoping to prove the obvious fact too much of anything is potentially harmful. He said he wanted to shed light on the massive marketing machines that sell unhealthy food to Americans, and even the laziness of those Americans

"For a company that feeds 46 million people a day to say 'None of this is my fault' is preposterous," Spurlock said of what he called McDonald's "insidious marketing campaign," especially to children.

"If you get 'em while they're young, you have them forever. (McDonald's is a) gigantic part of the problem."

He said McDonald's alone spends $1.4 billion per year on advertising. And he slammed McDonald's executives for saying teaching kids to make healthy choices is the answer to childhood obesity when they market to those same kids so vigorously.

But Spurlock said much of the blame lies with lazy consumers who have forgotten how to cook for themselves. He pointed to his working mother who raised a family and still found a way to have a home cooked meal on the table each evening.

"We in America make bad choices," he said. "It has nothing to do with time or money."

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Mills may be contacted at jmills@lmtribune.com