Did Very Little to Rebut Spurlock; from a voice of the ETERNAL RIGHT
A lot of the comments expressing support for Lee Doren's simplistic and predictable libertarian defense of Ronald McDonald heaped untold praise on a movie called Fat Head, which takes direct aim at one of my pesonal favorites, Super-Size Me.
I just watched it now. I will say the film, in my view, does little to retort Spurlock in any meaningful way. First, Noughton did not eat McDonald's the way most people do, avodiing excess calories, and eschewing in particular fries, sodas, and other items heavy in empty carbohydrates and sugars. If anything, his experiment is far less typical of people who eat at McDonald's than Spurlocks. Therefore, it can hardly be considered to bear any relevance on what this schlock does to the average American diet.
Going beyond that, the film directs a lot of firepower attacking government recommendations on a whole host of things, from the fallacy of the BMI index to the absurd notion that a diet should be based on carbs. He also rightly condemns a vegetarian diet as unhealthy. This is the bulk of the film, and it certainly raises some interesting points, but I do not see how it nullifies the most blatantly obvious fact that fast food is pretty much empty calories. I never believed that beef or animal fat is really that bad for you. For me it is the grease, the sodium, sugar, and empty carbs that are the obvious enemies.
As an interesting aside, he suggests that children are likely to consume more calories at a ma and pa diner than McDoanlds. The problem is that, at the prior, you are far less apt to eat empty calories.
Most importantly, he gives the shortest shrift to the effect that multi billion dollar advertising campaigns targeting children have on their minds and dare I say souls. This to me is one of the most egregious failures. His attitude is that people can be left to their own common sense as to what is good for them or not. Contrary to his dimissive attitude, the effect that such campaigns have on children--indeed all messages towads children generally--cannot be overstated. He simply dismisses the whole issue that it is up to the parents. Spurlock's segment on this refutes this notion far more succintcly than I ever could.
To close I thought I would submit one of the few critical articles I could find--alas from a vegan
http://botheyes.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/fat-head/
This libertarian gobbly goop really sticks in my craw, saying not just people, but faceless multinational corporations can do whateeer the f * c k they want, irrespective of the consequences, remaining steadfastly and resolutely ignorant of the very simple and self-evident principle that no man is an island, that what other people do affects you and me, just as what you and I do affects those around us. These people are usually nothing more than crass shills for corporate interests, advocating the absolute anarchy and chaos of a laissez-faire free for all. I have always believed that in many ways, less freedom is more, and these anything goes libertarian types prove it. That these corporate cronies advocating marketplace anarchy and lawlessness are to be the response to the left in this country disgusts me. The real right-wing, the eternal right, must resist these shills as steadfastly as the left.