Super Size Me premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, where Morgan Spurlock won the Grand Jury Prize for directing the film.[17] The film opened in the US on May 7, 2004, and grossed a total of $11,536,423 worldwide, making it the 22nd highest-grossing documentary film of all time.[18] It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, but lost to the film Born into Brothels. It did, however, win the award for Best Documentary Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America.[10]
The film received overall positive reviews from critics and audiences. It holds a 92% rating on the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 171 reviews, with an average rating of 7.73/10. The consensus calls the film an "entertaining doc about the adverse effects of eating fast food."[19] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 37 critics.[20]
Super Size Me received two thumbs up on At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper. Caroline Westbrook for BBC News stated that the hype for the documentary was proper "to a certain extent", because of its serious message, and that, overall, the film's "high comedy factor and over-familiarity of the subject matter render it less powerful than other recent documentaries – but it still makes for enjoyable, thought-provoking viewing."[21] One reviewer said "he's telling us something everyone already knows: Fast food is bad for you."[22]
Robert Davis of Paste said the film accomplished some of its goals and addressed an important topic, but, at the same time, sometimes looked more like a publicity stunt than a documentary. He primarily criticized the dramatic and unscientific approach of Super Size Me, saying Spurlock unnecessarily ate more than he had to and ignored his nutritionist's advice. Davis explained he would have been more interested had the documentary been about trying to eat as healthy as possible at McDonald's: "You could choose low-fat options, but it would be impossible to get enough vegetables and fiber, and the low-fat meal would be incredibly bland, the product of a system that has worked to optimize food delivery and consistency and, in doing so, has invented foods so devoid of flavor that they require dressings, oils, beef tallow and goopy coatings to make them more than just textured blobs. The industry has worked hard to convince consumers that these odd, sweet flavors are not only good but also unique, recognizable parts of a brand. Spurlock doesn't attempt to convey this message, presumably because the affects [sic] of too few vegetables and too little fiber aren't as dramatic as speedy weight-and-cholesterol gains."[23]
McDonald's UK responded that the author intentionally consumed an average of 5,000 calories per day and did not exercise, and that the results would have been the same regardless of the source of overeating.[24]
Counter-claims
In his reply documentary Fat Head, Tom Naughton "suggests that Spurlock's calorie and fat counts don't add up" and noted Spurlock's refusal to publish the Super Size Me food log. The Houston Chronicle reports: "Unlike Spurlock, Naughton has a page on his Web site that lists every item (including nutritional information) he ate during his fast-food month."[25]
After eating exclusively at McDonald's for one month, Soso Whaley said, "The first time I did the diet in April 2004, I lost 10 pounds (going from 175 to 165) and lowered my cholesterol from 237 to 197, a drop of 40 points." Of particular note was that she exercised regularly and did not insist on consuming more food than she otherwise would. Despite eating at only McDonald's every day, she maintained her caloric intake at around 2,000 per day.[26]
After John Cisna, a high school science teacher, lost 60 pounds while eating exclusively at McDonald's for 180 days, he said, "I'm not pushing McDonald's. I'm not pushing fast food. I'm pushing taking accountability and making the right choice for you individually... As a science teacher, I would never show Super Size Me because when I watched that, I never saw the educational value in that... I mean, a guy eats uncontrollable amounts of food, stops exercising, and the whole world is surprised he puts on weight? What I'm not proud about is probably 70 to 80 percent of my colleagues across the United States still show Super Size Me in their health class or their biology class. I don't get it."[27]
As a counterpoint, the film features interviews with Big Mac aficionado Don Gorske, who eats an average of two Big Macs a day, yet maintains his weight and cholesterol.
A 2006 study on fast food consumption by healthy individuals inspired by the documentary showed that, while the heavy diet does affect liver enzymes, it did not show the same dangerous effect shown in the documentary. This suggested that extreme reaction must have had another cause.[28][29]
In 2017, Spurlock admitted to a history of alcohol abuse which some critics, such as documentary filmmaker Phelim McAleer have argued may better account for many of his symptoms.[30]
