Hacker News Reader

Comment by hueving | Hacker News Reader

That documentary tested overeating well outside the bounds of any sane nutritional guidelines. It's sad that people don't have the critical thinking skills required to realize the same thing would happen if you ate those levels of calories at any restaurant or even at home.

View on HN

wasn't there a counter-documentary where someone ate from mcdonalds every day and also followed a fairly strict exercise regimen and wound up being way fitter than when he started?

Yep, it was called "Fat Head." The exercise regime wasn't even that strict, it was basically continuing the regular walking the documentarian already did. However, the food intake was strictly limited to 1800 calories and less then 100g of carbs per day. The goal being to show fast food isn't inherently unhealthy, it was the quantity (as already noted above) being eaten in Super Size Me that was unhealthy. In that regard, Fat Head succeeded as the documentarian's health metrics all improved (lot weight, lower blood pressure, better cholesterol measurements).

Note that the premise of "Super Size Me" was to get the "Super Size" menu whenever asked by the Mc Donald's counter clerk, leading to overconsumption.

Yes, but the overall point remains if you overeat you'll get fat regardless of what it is.

You can actually get a balanced daily diet out of mcdonalds if you ask for unsalted fries and get one of their salads once in a while.

Honestly sodium aside the only thing you need to do not to over eat at MC is to get water instead of soda and just regular sized burger.

It will be around 600-700 cals per meal with fries which means you can eat 3 of those a day and maintain weight or even lose some depending on your age, sex, bodymass and daily regiment.

As others mentioned, there was.

I did this myself around the same time as Super Size Me for a handful of reasons, none of which were to prove a point. I had good results from it. Would I have been even better off if I wasn't eating fast food for every meal? Probably. But I certainly wasn't worse off for eating that way and it scratched the itches which led me to that path in the first place.

Fat Head.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me#Criticism_and_st...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com