The Sporkful Presents: How Did ‘Super Size Me’ End Up In Schools?

Summary

Revisionist History Episode Summary Episode Title: The Sporkful Presents: How Did ‘Super Size Me’ End Up In Schools?
Release Date: April 3, 2025
Host/Author: Pushkin Industries (Originally by The Sporkful, hosted by Dan Pashman)

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell delves into the enduring legacy of Morgan Spurlock's groundbreaking documentary, Super Size Me. Originally introduced by Gladwell as an exploration of how Super Size Me became a staple in American educational systems, this episode navigates the film's inception, its explosive success, the subsequent controversies surrounding Morgan Spurlock, and the film's lasting impact on public health education.

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The Making of Super Size Me

Super Size Me, released in 2004, began as a daring experiment where Morgan Spurlock ate exclusively McDonald's food for 30 days. This section explores the genesis of the film and the personal motivations behind Spurlock's undertaking.

• Alex Jameson's Transformation ([05:31]–[07:19]):
  Alex Jameson recounts her personal health journey, highlighting her switch to a vegan diet and eventual meeting with Morgan Spurlock. "It was my light bulb moment. The idea that what you eat can affect your health in all kinds of different ways" ([06:56]).

• Development of the Experiment ([12:37]–[13:58]):
  Inspired by a news segment on obesity lawsuits against McDonald's, Spurlock decides to document the effects of a McDonald's-only diet. "Morgan's attitude was, if I feel like crap, it'll be a good movie..." ([12:23]).

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Super Size Me's Success and Cultural Impact

The documentary quickly gained traction, leading to widespread recognition and significant changes within the fast-food industry.

• Sundance Premiere and Awards ([20:03]–[21:17]):
  Super Size Me premiered at Sundance Film Festival, where it won the documentary directing award. The film grossed $22 million on a $65,000 budget and was nominated for an Academy Award.

• McDonald's Response ([21:17]–[22:27]):
  Shortly after the film's release, McDonald's discontinued its super size menu, citing it was not directly influenced by the documentary. Nonetheless, Super Size Me is widely regarded as a catalyst for change in fast-food practices, including the introduction of healthier menu options and calorie counts.

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Morgan Spurlock's Confession and Career Downfall

In 2017, Spurlock's career faced a severe setback when he made a public confession that cast doubt on the authenticity of Super Size Me.

• Confession Letter ([34:03]–[34:51]):
  Amid the #MeToo movement, Spurlock published a letter titled "I am Part of the Problem," admitting to various personal and professional misconducts, including alcohol abuse. "I haven't been sober for more than a week in 30 years," he wrote ([34:21]).

• Impact on Super Size Me ([38:48]–[39:59]):
  Spurlock's admission led to widespread skepticism about the documentary's findings. Experts like Dr. Jeffrey Schwimmer indicate that while diet plays a role in liver health, Spurlock's undisclosed alcohol consumption likely skewed his results. "Non alcoholic fatty liver disease is largely genetic, but that diet also plays a role" ([47:12]).

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Repercussions and Legacy

Despite the controversies, Super Size Me continues to be shown in schools, albeit amidst evolving perspectives on health and body image.

• Continued Screening in Schools ([50:35]–[55:32]):
  The film remains a fixture in American health education, with mixed responses from students. While some are persuaded by its anti-fast-food message, others, especially those struggling with body image, find it damaging. "I absolutely believe that you can be healthy at any size" ([53:01]).

• Academic Perspectives ([49:20]–[54:22]):
  Emily Contois, an associate professor of Media Studies, critiques the film's portrayal of body image, acknowledging its role in shaping public health policies but also its inadvertent promotion of fat stigma.

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Final Reflections and Conclusion

Malcolm Gladwell wraps up the episode by reflecting on the complex legacy of Super Size Me. The film not only sparked significant discourse on fast food and public health but also serves as a case study on how personal actions can reverberate through professional achievements.

• Morgan Spurlock's Death and Public Perception ([55:06]–[58:29]):
  Spurlock's untimely death in May 2023 reignited debates about his work's validity. Friends and colleagues, including Scott Ambrosey, a cinematographer from Super Size Me, defend Spurlock's integrity during the original filming, asserting he was not consuming alcohol during the experiment. "He was not drinking during those times... I can guarantee you that he was not drinking" ([44:21]).

• Dr. Jeffrey Schwimmer's Insights ([47:12]–[48:00]):
  Medical experts provide a nuanced view, emphasizing that while diet influences health, individual genetic factors play a significant role. This underscores the documentary's limitations and the importance of personalized health assessments.

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Notable Quotes

1. Alex Jameson on Diet Transformation ([06:56]):
   "It was my light bulb moment. The idea that what you eat can affect your health in all kinds of different ways."

2. Morgan Spurlock on Experiment Motivation ([12:23]):
   "Morgan's attitude was, if I feel like crap, it'll be a good movie."

3. Emily Contois on Film's Impact ([53:01]):
   "I absolutely believe that you can be healthy at any size."

4. Scott Ambrosey on Spurlock's Integrity ([44:21]):
   "He was not drinking during those times... I can guarantee you that he was not drinking."

5. Morgan Spurlock's Confession ([34:21]):
   "I haven't been sober for more than a week in 30 years."

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Conclusion

This episode of Revisionist History meticulously deconstructs the multifaceted narrative of Super Size Me. From its ambitious beginnings and cultural impact to the controversies that marred its legacy, the story serves as a profound commentary on media influence, personal accountability, and the complexities of public health discourse. Malcolm Gladwell invites listeners to reassess their perceptions of historical narratives, emphasizing that understanding the full context often requires revisiting and revising our initial interpretations.

Transcript

[Malcolm Gladwell]

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[Morgan Spurlock]

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[Dan Pashman]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season one.

[Morgan Spurlock]

Every time I hear about my dad, it's oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Dan Pashman]

I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and the son he'd never known.

[Morgan Spurlock]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Dan Pashman]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2, starting April 9 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Hello, hello. Malcolm Glapple here. It's been a busy season. Revisionist History coming up next week, we're bringing you an argument on the American Siren. Do they even save time when it comes to reaching emergencies? And what if we didn't have them at all? That's next week. Today we're excited to share an episode from the podcast the Sporkful. Hosted by Dan Pashman. The Sporkful is not for foodies, it's for eaters. And every week they obsess about food to learn more about people. Which is actually something we'll be exploring in a few weeks on Revisionist History with a special episode on the beloved nooks and crannies of Thomas's English muffins. Stay tuned for that. But this episode of the Sporkful looks at the legacy of the documentary Super Size Me. The film started as a stunt. What would happen if Morgan Spurlock ate only McDonald's for 30 days? But this low budget film became a nationwide hit and turned Morgan into a household name. Years later, at the peak of his career, Morgan published a confession that tanked his career and called into question the results of the film. So what was really going on in Super Size Me? And why, after all these years, is it still being shown in schools? Here's Dan Pashman.

[Andre Zohara]

Please note, this episode contains references to sexual abuse and disordered eating. All right, let's make some authentic sound effects here.

[Alex Jameson]

Mine's gonna become a man right now. It's a little baby, little baby in A can. And then.

[Andre Zohara]

Oh, man. Foley sound effects. Eat your heart out.

[Alex Jameson]

We gotta. We got a second career coming.

[Andre Zohara]

Ten years ago, I interviewed the documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock. At the time, in his Twitter bio, he called himself a Guinness drinking West Virginia hillbilly. So I thought, let's chat over some Guinness. Imagine if your whole job was just to open and drink beer to make sound effects.

[Alex Jameson]

How do I get that job?

[Andre Zohara]

But Morgan wasn't there just to talk about Guinness. He was promoting his new Showtime series, Seven Deadly Sins. Each episode was a story about a person who embodies one of those sins. The show leaned heavily on extremes like extreme eating and the extreme ways people treat their bodies.

[Alex Jameson]

Her goal was to become the fattest person in the world. Like, she wanted to break the Guinness Book of World Record. And then once she hit 600 and some pounds, somewhere in there, she had this, like, elevated sexuality within her body that she just wanted to explore and enjoy.

[Andre Zohara]

I couldn't help but see the link between this project and Morgan's most famous film, Super Size Me. It's a documentary where Morgan himself goes to extremes, eating nothing but McDonald's for 30 days and monitoring how it affects his body. Morgan told me that for him, these extremes have a purpose.

[Alex Jameson]

I'm more interested in people thinking about the choices that we make and, you know, through something that is, I think, shocking or offensive.

[Andre Zohara]

Super Size me came out 20 years ago. When Morgan Spurlock released it, he achieved a status that most documentary filmmakers can only dream about. The film made millions at the box office. It was nominated for an Academy Award, and it turned Morgan into a star. And to this day, the film is still shown in middle school and high school health classes across America. Morgan went on to make more documentaries. It seemed like for a time, he was taking on some of the biggest cultural and social issues in this country. Then, one of the biggest cultural issues in America caught up with him when he made a shocking confession at the height of the MeToo movement. Part of that confession also had an impact on Super Size Me, calling into question how real key parts of the film actually were. This past May, Morgan died of cancer. He was 53. Almost no one knew he was sick. And his death revealed just how much he had disappeared from public life since his confession. Today on the show, we're asking, who really was Morgan Spurlock? What was it about Super Size Me that made it such a huge hit? And after all these years, should we still be showing it to kids? This is the Sporkful. It's not for foodies. It's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food. To learn more about people today, we're bringing you the inside story of Super Size Me and a look at the film's legacy today. Because it's a pretty epic and complicated story, our senior producer Andre Zohara looked into it.

[Scott Ambrosey]

I'm going to tell you the story of Super Size Me in five chapters. We'll start with chapter one, the prologue. This chapter starts in a farmhouse outside of Portland, Oregon, in the 1970s. That's where Alex Jameson grew up. Her parents were, in her words, back to the land hippies.

[Emily Contois]

My mom had an organic gardening radio show for a decade. It was called Eve's Organic Garden. And once a year I would go on the show and do a children's gardening course corner and talk about growing strawberries or butterfly pollinating plants, things like that.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Alex's family would harvest vegetables from the garden and barter for chickens and local honey from their neighbors. But eventually, Alex went away for college. And she ate like a lot of college students. Plenty of junk food and sweets, not a whole lot of veggies. And she continued eating that way in her early 20s when she moved to New York and got her first big job.

[Emily Contois]

So I was a legal assistant and it was just grueling work. And the first time I'd ever had a sit down artificial lighting, 10 to 12 hour days. And I just started eating more sugar, more caffeine to get through the day, and I started getting horrible migraines.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Doctors prescribed painkillers and antidepressants, but she didn't want to go down that path.

[Emily Contois]

So I found another doctor that, you know, had a Buddha and ferns in his office and he actually asked me, like, what I was eating.

[Scott Ambrosey]

This doctor suggested that Alex make some changes to her diet. And when Alex got this advice, it was her light bulb moment. The idea that what you eat can affect your health in all kinds of different ways. So she went to the library and dove into books about health and nutrition. This was in the 90s, pre Google. Within a few weeks, she radically changed her diet. She went vegan, and then she went.

[Emily Contois]

Further, took everything out. Gluten, dairy, soy, sugar, caffeine. First week was horrible. You feel worse before you feel better, right?

[Scott Ambrosey]

Six months after making these changes, Alex left her job at the law firm and enrolled at the Natural Gourmet Institute, a cooking school in New York. At night, she worked as a cocktail waitress. One night while working at the bar, she met a guy named Morgan Spurlock, and they started flirting. The next week, he came to the bar when Alex's shift ended at 4am and he took her out to breakfast. They started dating, and Alex began learning about Morgan's life. Morgan grew up in Beckley, West Virginia. His mother was a public school teacher and his dad owned a tool machine shop. Morgan was the youngest of three boys.

[Emily Contois]

And he and his older brothers growing up in Beckley were all ballet dancers. His eldest brother, Craig, actually went professional. I just think it's so cool that their parents were supportive of that. To be Ballerinos. Yeah. And, you know, Morgan also really got into student government. I mean, the most energetic person on.

[Scott Ambrosey]

The planet at the time. Morgan had two very different ideas about what he wanted to do with his life. One idea came from that student government side. He wanted to go to West Point and join the army and then become a politician. But Morgan didn't get into West Point, so he pursued his second acting. He ended up at the film program at New York University. After graduating, he pursued acting for a few years, but it wasn't really working out, so he opened his own production company. This is when he and Alex started dating. He was 30 and she was 25.

[Emily Contois]

I was like, so what do you do for a living? He's like, I'm a producer. And I was like, what does that mean? He's like, I make things happen. I was like, oh, my God, please never say that to anyone ever again. That's disgusting. And he thought that was hilarious.

[Scott Ambrosey]

One of his projects was an online video series called I Bet yout Will.

[Emily Contois]

He would say this himself. He was like, it was just the dumbest ideas. It's what you would do in high school with your friends. Like, I'll give you $5 if you'll eat, you know, three sandwiches in less than five minutes. You know, just betting people to do stupid stuff for money, getting people to.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Do stupid stuff for money. It wasn't exactly a new concept, but it was a hot idea at the time. And the show got acquired by mtv.

[Emily Contois]

He got a bigger budget going down to the Jersey Shore for spring break, and crowds of teenagers, you know, betting each other to do things. It was ridiculous.

[Alex Jameson]

I will pay you $100 cash to stuff this entire pizza into your pants.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Are you ready?

[Sean Lawton]

Yeah.

[Alex Jameson]

She's gonna go for it. I will give you $400 cash to put on the. I bet you will thong. You will jump rope while we spray you with milk. Right here we have if this. I bet you will mealworm. Those are nice Right. And of course, the world famous. I bet you will. Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Yeah. In that last one, he's challenging a contestant to put cockroaches and mealworms down her pants. Let's get a.

[Alex Jameson]

Get a roach in. There you go, buddy.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Do you think at the time, like, was he happy? Was he excited about this?

[Emily Contois]

Oh, he was over the moon. He was so excited. At the same time, he was broke. We were both broke. He loved that I was in culinary school because I would bring all the leftovers from school and feed the office. And he was actually living in the office at that point because he couldn't afford an apartment for at least a year.

[Scott Ambrosey]

I think Morgan had discovered that even though he was gaining success with his MTV show, it wasn't really paying the bills.

[Emily Contois]

He was, like, paying employees with credit cards. He was, like, going and doing, like, man with a van jobs on Craigslist. He would work a full day in the production office and then go, you know, lift shit for other people for like, 40 bucks just so he could, like, buy Metro cards for his staff. Like, he really, really was the hardest worker.

[Scott Ambrosey]

After two seasons, I Bet yout Will didn't get renewed. But Morgan had made some money from the show, and he had to figure out what to do next. He was in a lot of debt at the time, somewhere between 60 and $70,000. So one option would be to use that money to pay down that debt. Instead, he decided to ignore it for a little while longer and find his next project. Chapter two the idea. In 2002, Morgan and Alex were in West Virginia for Thanksgiving with Morgan's family.

[Emily Contois]

We were on his mom's couch, and we were watching the news and. And there was this story about two teenage girls in New York City who were suing McDonald's.

[Scott Ambrosey]

The two girls who lived in the Bronx were suing McDonald's for damages related to obesity. They argued that McDonald's was responsible for their adverse health outcomes because it didn't tell customers about the health risks of its food. As the news story continued, a spokesperson for McDonald's came on. He said that you can't link McDonald's to obesity at all because their food was healthy and nutritious.

[Emily Contois]

And he was like, well, what would happen if I just ate nothing about McDonald's for a month? And I was like, please don't do that. And he was like, wait a minute. That's a great. Like, that's literally what happened. We had a fight on the couch. And I was like, please don't do this.

[Scott Ambrosey]

And so were you thinking, like, of all the people I could have met.

[Emily Contois]

Well, you know, I was in love with him, and he was a goofball. And Morgan's attitude was, well, if I feel like crap, it'll be a good movie, and if nothing happens to me, it'll be a great advertisement for McDonald's, and I'll see if they'll want to buy it. And I was like, oh, my God, dude. Okay, go ahead. And he was off.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Morgan got to work. The film starts off with Morgan consulting with three doctors to get a baseline of his. Your blood tests are excellent.

[Emily Contois]

Your blood level's fine. Your iron level is good as well.

[Morgan Spurlock]

You have no evidence of diabetes. Your fasting blood sugar is very low.

[Emily Contois]

Your kidney function, your liver function, they were all perfect.

[Dan Pashman]

You don't smoke?

[Alex Jameson]

I used to, but I don't.

[Emily Contois]

Any drug use at all?

[Alex Jameson]

Not for a long time.

[Emily Contois]

Any alcohol use? Now?

[Alex Jameson]

None.

[Morgan Spurlock]

Is there anything we didn't cover? Is there anything else you need to tell me?

[Alex Jameson]

I don't think so.

[Morgan Spurlock]

Patient is embarking on a one month McDonald's binge.

[Scott Ambrosey]

As he sets off, Morgan creates rules for this experiment. He has to adopt the lifestyle of an average American. So he stops exercising and he even cuts back on the amount that he walks. He'll only consume food and drink sold at McDonald's, nothing else. And if he's asked if he wants to supersize a meal, he has to say yes. The whole thing, it feels sort of scientific with the rules and the doctors and the blood tests, but you also see the Morgan of, I bet you the one who wants to go to extremes and have a lot of fun doing it. Hello.

[Emily Contois]

Can I help you?

[Alex Jameson]

Yeah, could I get the double quarter pounder with cheese meal matters supersize. I think I'm gonna have to go super size.

[Scott Ambrosey]

On day two, Morgan gets his first super size meal, and he is pumped.

[Alex Jameson]

Look at that. Look at how big that thing is. Look how big that french fry is.

[Scott Ambrosey]

But then as he starts eating, Morgan's enthusiasm drops.

[Alex Jameson]

But I'm just not. I'm not even halfway done with those fries. I'm in. Halfway.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Five minutes goes by, and then 10 as he's pushing himself to finish the whole meal.

[Alex Jameson]

Just give me a minute.

[Scott Ambrosey]

He's in his car, eating in the McDonald's parking lot, and suddenly he leans out the window and pukes. The camera then goes over his shoulder, and you can see the mess that Morgan's made on the pavement. But Morgan doesn't quit. After day three, his body seems to adapt to his new diet. And he's putting away McDonald's much more easily. Day five is his first weigh in with his dietitians. He started out weighing 185 pounds.

[Sean Lawton]

We have to stop everything. I don't believe it.

[Alex Jameson]

195 pounds.

[Morgan Spurlock]

It can't be though.

[Sean Lawton]

We have to redo this.

[Emily Contois]

You gained actually about 5% of your body weight. Losing weight that fast and gaining weight that fast is not healthy.

[Scott Ambrosey]

After 10 days, Morgan's gained nearly 10% of his body weight. 17 pounds. He's also getting headaches, feeling depressed and sluggish at times. He's eating 5,000 calories a day.

[Alex Jameson]

I officially had to loosen my belt the other day from had to go a notch lower.

[Scott Ambrosey]

One notch.

[Alex Jameson]

One notch.

[Emily Contois]

Girlfriend just be loving you.

[Alex Jameson]

She hates me.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Morgan's girlfriend, of course, is Alex, who you've been hearing from. She's introduced as Morgan's girlfriend and vegan chef, but she also worked with Morgan behind the scenes on the film. Alex connected Morgan with nutrition experts and got Morgan to look into school lunch programs for the film. In one notable scene, she appears on camera to talk about what Morgan's super sized diet has been like for her.

[Emily Contois]

It's hard for me to watch him go through this. He's exhausted by the end of the day, just so tired. Gets home really late from work and. And now he gets all jacked up on sugar and caffeine, and then he crashes. And then when we do have sex, I gotta tell ya, he's not quite as energetic as he used to be. I have to be on top. Otherwise he, you know, he gets tired easily. I think the saturated fats are starting to impede the blood flow to his penis. I didn't know if anybody was gonna see this.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Alex told me that in the decades since the film came out, she's been asked about that scene a lot.

[Emily Contois]

If I had known I'd be sitting next to my grandmother in a movie theater watching this scene, I wouldn't have said it, but I'm glad I did.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Alex believed in the message of the film, even if she didn't always love Morgan's tactics. At the time, she was working as a personal chef, and some of her clients were people dealing with serious illnesses. For Alex, this scene showed how a poor diet can affect all parts of your life, not just the most obvious ones. Anyway, up to this point in the film, Morgan's powering through, and it seems like he's having fun. But about two weeks in, things take a turn for the worse.

[Alex Jameson]

It's it's like two in the morning. I woke up, couldn't breathe, felt like I was having heart palpitations.

[Scott Ambrosey]

He sees one of his doctors who doesn't really know why Morgan is experiencing these symptoms. The doctor seems worried.

[Morgan Spurlock]

If the pain starts to radiate to your jaw or down your arm, that's life threatening and immediately. So. Yeah, so I need to hear about that or you need to call 911.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Okay. Morgan gets his full blood work done again. His cholesterol and his body fat are way up. But it's worse than that.

[Morgan Spurlock]

Okay. For the first time, we're seeing uric acid elevators. So you're giving yourself hyperuricemia. And the danger of hyperuricemia is gout, kidney stones. The results for your liver are obscene beyond anything I would have thought. You're sick and you're making yourself sick. And you can make yourself unsick by stopping doing what you're doing.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Suddenly this fun, goofy stunt gets very serious. And you can see Morgan right in the middle of this experiment, reckon with the fact that he might have done some real damage to his body and he doesn't know what's going to happen if he keeps going.

[Emily Contois]

I was terrified. I was like, dude, stop. You've proven your point. You've done it. Please stop. Like, it's gotten so bad so quickly. Imagine what another two weeks will do to you. And he loved to tell this story about how he called all his friends and he talked to all the doctors and me and everybody saying, stop. And then he talked to Craig, who is one of my favorite people on earth, his oldest brother, Craig. Craig was like, morgan, people eat this crap their whole lives. You think another two weeks is gonna kill you. And Morgan's like, great, I'm gonna keep going.

[Scott Ambrosey]

And spoiler alert, I guess Morgan survives. He keeps up his McDonald's diet, and he goes back to the dietitians for one final weigh in. At the end of the 30 days, he marches to the scale wearing only a tiny Speedo with an image of the American flag on it.

[Morgan Spurlock]

Woo hoo.

[Emily Contois]

Okay.

[Alex Jameson]

Oh, yeah.

[Emily Contois]

Oh, boy.

[Alex Jameson]

210.

[Emily Contois]

I'm gonna say 210 right on the money.

[Alex Jameson]

In only 30 days of eating nothing but McDonald's, I gained 24 and a half pounds. My liver turned to fat and my cholesterol shot up 65 points. My body fat percentage went from 11 to 18%. I nearly doubled my risk of coronary heart disease, making myself twice as likely to have heart failure.

[Scott Ambrosey]

The movie ends with Alex taking control she puts Morgan on a vegan high fiber diet. After six weeks, his cholesterol and liver functions go back to normal. It then takes him five months to lose 20 pounds. Chapter 3. A super sized success. Morgan finished the film at the end of 2003. And then things started happening very quickly. Super Size Me was selected for the Sundance Film Festival. So Morgan and Alex flew out to Utah for the premiere. The screening room was packed. And then the movie started playing.

[Emily Contois]

There's like, Morgan talking to the camera, like, I'm ready, Super Size Me. And then the queen song starts, right? Fat Bottom Girls was opening the movie. And, like, the crowd erupted into applause and cheers. And I was like, that's not norm. That's not normal. This is Sundance. And Morgan and I were standing, standing room only. We were in the back of the theater. We ran out to the lobby, and we were just like, oh, my God, like, people might actually like this. Like, I think this is gonna happen.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Morgan won the documentary directing award at Sundance. And just like that, it seemed like everybody wanted this film.

[Emily Contois]

And then we went to over 20 countries in the next year, going to film festivals around the world. And that was the first and only time I ever flew first class. Like, we got put in the best. We went to Australia for, like, three different film festivals. I mean, I can never go back to Australia because I flew there first class. And I think that's probably a really rough trip if you're not in the big, fancy seats. So it was just. It was just really fun. It was an amazing opportunity.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Super Size Me, which had a $65,000 budget, grossed $22 million. It was a huge figure for a documentary. It was even nominated for an Oscar. Morgan Spurlock became a household name, and the film became sort of a shorthand. Even if you didn't see it, you knew the gist of it. This guy ate nothing but McDonald's for a month, and he got really sick. Six weeks after the film was released, McDonald's discontinued its super size menu. The company said that at the time, the film didn't affect their decision. Alex was also getting a lot of attention. She set up a website and posted some of the recipes that were featured in the movie. Once the film came out, she received thousands of messages from people who wanted her advice on health and nutrition.

[Emily Contois]

And we were just both really honored and excited that I was getting to talk about food and health with people all around the world. And he was getting to do film and tv. We both got book deals out of it. Morgan's next project got Greenlit to do another show. Like, it just so much was happening so quickly. I was like, wow, I guess I should start a health coaching business. Like, okay. So that was the next 10 years for me. So it was. Yeah, it was a happy time.

[Scott Ambrosey]

While Morgan was at Sundance celebrating his success across the country in Washington, D.C. shawn Lawton was looking for his next big client. Sean was a speaking agent. He booked speakers for universities. That was his market.

[Sean Lawton]

My buyers are 18 to 22 year olds who somehow are in charge of enormous amounts of money, and they get to decide who comes to their school. Around 2002, 2003, we started to see Michael Moore and Eric Schlosser. Those guys just got booked everywhere.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Eric Schlosser was the author of Fast Food the Dark side of the All American Meal. It came out in 2001. The next year, Michael Moore released his hit documentary about gun violence, Bowling for Columbine.

[Sean Lawton]

I mean, they were doing universities everywhere you turned. The problem was I didn't represent either one of those. And so you're like, okay, I'm gonna find the next thing. And my then girlfriend showed me a news article and said, hey, read this. And it was just a short blurb about Super Size Me and the reception that it got. And I read it and I'm like, oh, my God. Michael Moore and Eric Schlosser had a love child, and that is going to be my next speaker. And I came into the office that day and I told my assistant, I said, you have one job today. Find me Morgan Spurlock.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Sean got Morgan on the phone while he was still at Sundance. A week later, Sean signed Morgan as his client and got to work, booking him at universities.

[Sean Lawton]

I'm booking him. I haven't met him. I haven't seen the movie. So it's a lot of smoke and mirrors.

[Scott Ambrosey]

You booked him without meeting him and without seeing the movie?

[Sean Lawton]

Yes.

[Scott Ambrosey]

What made you feel like, I can actually take the risk and book this guy without having met him and without seeing the thing that everyone's talking about?

[Sean Lawton]

It was just. It was an irresistible hook. Man eats 30 days of McDonald's and lives to talk about it. Truthfully, the movie's success was somewhat irrelevant because it wasn't the movie. Ultimately, it was Morgan. Cause he was this bigger than life personality. He was such a confident guy, and I was a little arrogant myself. So we were, you know, a pretty brash duo going out there and saying, hey, this is gonna be the thing you need to bring to your K. And within our first year, our first 12 months, we booked 72 speaking engagements at universities.

[Scott Ambrosey]

These talks were lucrative for Morgan. In 2004, his fee started at $7,500 per talk. The next year, that fee doubled. Morgan spoke in packed campus auditoriums across the country about the Super Size Me story. And after his first year on the road, more and more schools wanted him.

[Sean Lawton]

What was really surprising to me was the staying power of Super Size Me. Okay, here's a movie that comes out in 2004. It's on home video by, you know, 2006, 2007, you would think, okay, that movie has had its run.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Morgan had also moved on. In 2005, he launched the series 30 Days on FX, where he attempted to live a totally different life for a month. In 2008, he got a little more ambitious and made a film where he tried to track down Osama Bin Laden. But Sean says wherever Morgan went to speak, everyone wanted to hear about Super Size Me. Sean and Morgan knew how to capitalize on that interest, even in places where the film might have gotten them in a little trouble.

[Sean Lawton]

I remember getting contracts from, especially from some religious schools that would, you know, have morality clauses in them about the language. And, you know, if the morality clauses were breached, they wouldn't pay. First thing I thought was, okay, we've got a scene here with Morgan's naked buttocks and we've got a couple of F words. Southern Methodist University might not be ready for this next, you know, Morgan had a family friendly cut of the movie made that he could take out to schools with religious affiliations or eventually high schools and secondary schools.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Creating this PG version of the film was a crucial decision that helps explain the film's staying power and how it ended up being taught in health classes across the country to this day. At the time, Morgan was also being asked to speak in middle schools and high schools. And when he gave these talks, he brought a copy of this school friendly version of Super Size Me. He mostly got positive, encouraging responses from parents and teachers, but not always.

[Sean Lawton]

I remember vividly a woman standing up and she was like, I appreciate you coming here. I loved the movie. I loved your story. I'm a single mom. I've got three kids. Child support's not cutting it. You know, I gotta work these jobs. I gotta, you know, I have childcare in limited capacity. What am I supposed to do?

[Scott Ambrosey]

The mother said that she often picked up McDonald's for her kids. It was a fast and inexpensive way to get dinner on the table. And now here's this film telling her that this is actually a Terrible choice.

[Sean Lawton]

And that was one of the few times Morgan didn't have a good comeback. And that was one of the things that I think kind of stuck with him through the Super Size Me cycle is okay here. I did open Pandora's box, you know, now what? And I think one of the things that he was gonna eventually try to unravel was Super Size Me 2, which was, what would it look like if we reinvented the fast food model?

[Scott Ambrosey]

Coming up, 13 years after the premiere of Super Size Me, Morgan launches his next big project, a sequel. But just as the film is about to be released, he does something that brings his whole career crashing down. Stick around.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. One of the things that stops people from getting therapy is the cost, right? It's not cheap. Traditional therapy can be as much as a hundred dollars to $250 a session. I used to bring this up with my therapist years ago, and she would say, well, if you had a broken leg, you pay lots of money to get it fixed, right? So why wouldn't you pay lots of money to fix your mind? Which makes perfect sense. And I would remind myself of that every time I wrote her a check. But still, $100 to $250 a session is a financial impossibility for most people. That's one of the reasons why BetterHelp is so valuable. BetterHelp comes in at roughly half the cost, so therapy doesn't come with the same kind of stressful financial burden. Therapy should feel accessible, not a luxury. With online therapy, you get quality care at a price that makes sense. Your mental health is worth it. And now it's within reach. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. It's convenient, too. You can join a session with the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. Plus switch therapists at any time. Your well being is worth it. Visit betterhelp.com gladwell to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E-L-P.com gladwell Something unexpected happened after.

[Dan Pashman]

Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley season one.

[Scott Ambrosey]

I just knew him as a kid.

[Dan Pashman]

Long, silent voices from his past came.

[Sean Lawton]

Forward, and he was just staring at me.

[Dan Pashman]

And they had secrets of their own to share.

[Morgan Spurlock]

Gilbert King. I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott.

[Dan Pashman]

I was no longer just telling the story. I was part of it.

[Morgan Spurlock]

Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Dan Pashman]

I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known.

[Morgan Spurlock]

If the cops and everything would have done their job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed.

[Dan Pashman]

I never expected to find myself in this place. Now I need to tell you how I got here.

[Morgan Spurlock]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Dan Pashman]

Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy Jeremy, I.

[Morgan Spurlock]

Want to tell you something.

[Dan Pashman]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 starting April 9 on the iHeartrade Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and to hear the entire new season ad free with exclusive content starting April 9th. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Andre Zohara]

All right, back to the show. Senior producer Andre Sahara picks it up from here.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Okay, on to Chapter four. Part of the Problem in the years after Morgan Spurlock released Super Size Me While Morgan was touring the country talking about his film and making other documentaries, fast food companies went on a marketing blitz to convince the public that their food was fresher, cleaner and healthier. And in fact, some of those companies wanted to recruit Morgan in their campaigns. In 2016, an ad agency reached out to him. The idea was to create a fake documentary where he investigates Hardee's and Carl's Jr. And then discovers, to his utmost surprise, that they're actually really healthy. Morgan never took the job, but that pitch gave him his next big idea. What if he started his own fast food restaurant? That's the premise of super size me 2. Holy chicken. Morgan sets out to create a fast food restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, called Holy Chicken to see if he can make fast food that's actually good for you. He decides to raise his own chickens for the restaurant, but when he does that, he confronts the dark world of factory farming, where animals bred for meat are getting sick and dropping dead, and small farmers who are deeply in debt to giant meat companies are terrified of speaking out. The film has Morgan Spurlock's special sauce. It's gruesome and infuriating while still being funny and captivating. Super Size Me 2 premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September of 2017, where it was acquired by YouTube for $3.5 million. The film was set to be released in theaters in early 2018. Morgan was still working with Shawn Laughton, his speaking agent, and they had big plans for the release.

[Sean Lawton]

I was excited about, you know, going back and, you know, a little bit like getting the band back together. You know, I was gonna be taking this out to colleges who don't even remember this first super size.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Sean was also making big changes in his own life. After working at the same place for 20 years, Sean made the jump to a new agency in Colorado, which would be a big step up for him. He'd be taking his clients with him, and Morgan was a big draw for this new agency. Sean and his wife had just had a baby, and now they were moving across the country to start a new life in Colorado.

[Sean Lawton]

With the movie on the horizon. You know, Morgan was in a really good place. I was in a really good place. There was a lot of excitement. We were both, you know, somewhat giddy about what the future held.

[Scott Ambrosey]

In December of 2017, Sean had finished his move to Colorado and jumped on a flight back east for the holidays.

[Sean Lawton]

And I was on the plane and I landed at Reagan Airport. And as soon as I turned my phone on, my notifications lit up in a way that I don't know that I've ever seen them before or since. I mean, I knew something was wrong. I thought something terrible had happened to my family. But then as I started opening emails and text messages, it was journalists, and they were all like, do you have a comment on the Morgan Spurlock story? I was like, uh, oh, what's the Morgan Spurlock story?

[Scott Ambrosey]

At the height of MeToo, Morgan had written a letter and posted it online. It was titled I am Part of the Problem. In it, he describes an experience in college where he had a one night stand with a woman, one that she later described as rape. He confessed to paying a settlement to another woman who worked for his company for sexual harassment. He admitted to infidelity and belittling and demeaning women in his office. He said he'd been an alcoholic for decades and that alcohol had been a way to cope with his depression. And he also said that he'd been sexually abused as a child. Near the end of the letter, he writes, I am part of the problem. We all are. But I am also part of the solution. By recognizing and openly admitting what I've done to further this terrible situation, I hope to empower the change within myself. We should all find the courage to admit we're at fault.

[Sean Lawton]

I remember thinking, this is really bad. This is not gonna go well. So the first thing I did, I hadn't even gotten home yet, and I called Morgan and he was. He was not himself. And I think he was just starting to come to grips with the fact of what he had done. And it was very clear that the reaction he was expecting was not the reaction he got. Morgan was a very thin, thoughtful, funny, organized guy. He told stories that felt very organic, but they were very well sculpted. And this was a meandering, poorly written diatribe that conflated things that had nothing to do with the other thing. And it was just a mess. And the first thing I thought was he was probably under the influence when he wrote this, and I don't think he had any idea what was about to happen. Literally, the day that he posted that, every business partner, every client, every brand deal, everybody left. I mean, it was rapid, it was sudden, it was complete. I mean, he did not have many people left in his orbit.

[Scott Ambrosey]

YouTube pulled out of the deal for Super Size Me 2. The film was dropped from Sundance, and Morgan stepped down from his production company, Warrior poets. Five days later, Jezebel published a story about the culture at Warrior poets. Seven women who were former employees described a fratty boys club culture where nude paintings were hung on the wall, alcohol was pushed on employees, and women were frequently commented on based on their looks. Shawn Lawton had to drop Morgan as a client.

[Sean Lawton]

And I remember calling the head of the agency that I just moved to, and I said, hey, I got some news. And I remember it was the first time that I realized that I was in a lot of trouble. A few months into that relationship, they did terminate my contract.

[Scott Ambrosey]

After Morgan published his letter, he briefly checked into a rehab facility. A month later, Sean was in New York and wanted to meet with Morgan for the first time since they'd parted ways.

[Sean Lawton]

I texted him, I said, hey, let's. Let's meet at a diner. Let's talk. And I remember he came in and it was like looking at a ghost. You know, it was the first time I'd seen him clean shaven. You know, the trademark mustache was gone. You know, his hair was thinning. He. The eyes were sunken. He just looked like somebody who was still in shock even after, I guess at that point, it'd probably been about six weeks. We talked a lot about his sobriety and how important that was to him. And even then, I was trying to let him know that, you know, this is not going to be easy. I can't speak to, you know, the experience of his victims, and I think that should be the first thought. And I think one of the things that, you know, in our later years and later conversations that always rubbed him the wrong way is there were people who didn't ever apologize. They didn't take ownership of it, and they didn't wind up getting canceled. They still got endorsements, they still got to do deals, they still got to be out in the public. And he never got that opportunity. And he felt like. But I. I confessed. I apologized. Why didn't I get the same grace? He was always looking for that fast forward button. It's like, how do we skip this part? And I'm like, you can't skip this part. I said, you're going to have to go through this, and you don't get to decide how long that's going to take. And that was the one thing that, you know, we probably had maybe three or four conversations over the years after that. And, you know, every time, it always started with, hey, can you bring me back as a client? You know, I really want to go out there and I want to do speaking again. You know, I really love it. And I'm like, look, you're one of the best speakers I've ever worked with. You've been a great friend. You were a huge part of my early career. You put me on the map as a speaking agent. But, I mean, we don't live in a world right now where we can just act like this didn't happen. I mean, you confessed to some bad things. And he was like, what else do I have to do? And I'm like, that's not for me to decide. But you have not healed yourself enough to be able to go out and resume your work. And that was the one thing that. I just don't know if it ever got through to him.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Morgan's confession didn't just topple his career. It also called into question his most famous work, Super Size Me. That's because in his letter, he wrote, I haven't been sober for more than a week in 30 years. If that was true, it meant that while Morgan was filming Super Size Me, while he was telling people that he was consuming nothing but McDonald's, he'd actually been drinking a lot. If you look at the film in that light, then those scenes with the doctors where he gets all those bad test results, they look really different because in the film, his doctors aren't just worried about the test results. They also seem baffled by them. They say that issues like these aren't usually associated with eating fatty foods. They're more often caused by something else.

[Emily Contois]

You know, we see people who go on an alcohol binge and their numbers go up like crazy.

[Morgan Spurlock]

That movie, Death in Las Vegas, Nicolas Cage, I mean, that pickle delivered during the course of a few weeks in Las Vegas, Right?

[Scott Ambrosey]

The movie's actually called Leaving Las Vegas. And in it, Nicolas Cage plays an alcoholic who takes a trip to Vegas to drink himself to death. That's the kind of thing the doctors say would lead to the test results Morgan was getting in Super Size Me.

[Morgan Spurlock]

I would never have thought that you could do the same thing with a high fat diet. If you were an alcoholic, I'd say, you're going to die. You keep drinking, you'll die.

[Scott Ambrosey]

And in the time since the movie came out, there have been more reasons to question it. In 2006, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Lynchping in Sweden attempted to replicate the Super Size Me results with a handful of college students. After 30 days of clocking 6,000 calories a day, all from fast food, the students did see a jump in their weight, between 5 and 15%. But those changes to their liver were nothing close to what Morgan reported in his film. Morgan's obituary in the New York Times cites his 2017 confession. The Obitz says in addition to his McDonald's only diet, he was drinking. A fact that he concealed from his doctors and the audience, and that most likely skewed his results. These days, if you look up Super Size Me online, you'll find videos and social media posts and Reddit threads of people saying that Morgan Spurlock was a liar, that he faked the results of Supersize Me. He published his letter online in 2017. Did you read that letter?

[Emily Contois]

I did, after it was published.

[Scott Ambrosey]

This is Alex Jameson again. Morgan and Alex were not together at the time of this letter. In 2006, Morgan and Alex got married and had a son together. They divorced a few years later. Alex found out about the letter through her sister.

[Emily Contois]

She's like, did you see Morgan's article? I was like, what? No, like, so that whole week is a blur. But yes, the letter. The letter had huge ramifications. We hadn't lived together in years, so I wasn't privy to how he was living his life. You know, I saw him a couple times a month, always with our kid.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Alex told me that she wouldn't talk about the specifics of the letter, about any of what Morgan confessed to, except for one thing. A lot of people took that letter and then made inferences about the film Super Size Me. And the big takeaway they got was that Morgan must have been drinking during the filming and he was hiding it. And is there anything you can say about that?

[Emily Contois]

He was not. Yes, Morgan drank alcohol throughout his life, but he had stopped drinking a month before, completely wasn't drinking during. Wasn't drinking After. Cause he was like, I don't want booze to impact anything. So he was like, super clean.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Yeah. I'll just ask one more question about that, which is that in the letter, he says, quote, I haven't been sober for more than a week in 30 years. And he went on to say that one of the things he did that he was ashamed of is he was constantly hiding things from wives and girlfriends and loved ones. Do you think it's possible that he could have been hiding a pattern of drinking from you in that time?

[Emily Contois]

No, I really don't. He misspoke in that letter, and I will say that he was. Again, I hadn't seen him in a few weeks before he wrote that letter or published it. I don't know what his state of mind was, but he was not in a great place. Obviously, when he wrote that. He didn't run it by anybody before he published it. So I don't think he was in the best place. And I think if I had asked him to clarify, he would have. The only hard part about it for me is that we have a kid, and it's really tough to have a famous parent, especially when that famous parent is going through something really hard. And it's just, you know, it does. It definitely irks me that people are like, oh, well, Super Size Me was a lie. Like, it wasn't. He was not drinking. And that's all there is to it. I don't know what else to tell people except you gotta take my word for it. Take Scott's word for it.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Scott is Scott Ambrosey, the cinematographer and cameraman on Super Size Me. The only cameraman.

[Hachi Chuku]

There's only one person in the world that can tell you whether he was drinking or not, okay? And that would be me, because I was with him, you know, for those 30 days, you know, if not 24 hours a day, 23 hours.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Scott and Morgan had worked together for years on other projects, including I Bet yout Will, the MTV show. When Morgan had the idea for Super Size Me on his mom's couch in West Virginia, Scott was the first person he called While they were filming Super Size Me. Scott traveled with Morgan everywhere. They were in the car together. They shared hotel rooms. And Scott was always filming.

[Hachi Chuku]

And I can guarantee you that he was not drinking during those times. Unless he was in the bathroom and he had a vial and he's swinging it down. But, you know, I didn't notice any kind of change in his behavior or, you know, his abilities and whatnot. And to be perfectly honest, I don't. I truly don't believe that he would break his own rules. The rule was he could only consume something if it came from McDonald's, and he did not break that rule. And I was there, and I know he didn't.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Scott says that if Morgan was binge drinking alone in the bathroom or wherever, that would have been a hard secret to keep from him because Scott and Morgan were close, and Scott knew what Morgan was like after a few drinks.

[Hachi Chuku]

There are moments in my life where I would hang out with Morgan, and I wish I didn't, because the next day was really important. You know, it kind of messed up a couple important days for me. But we had fun, you know, I mean, you know, I was the guy with the video camera in the 90s, and I always had a video camera with me.

[Scott Ambrosey]

When Scott and Morgan were making I Bet yout Will, they would get to their filming location, find the busiest club or bar in town, and pass out flyers to try to get contestants on the show. And they would often stick around and party.

[Hachi Chuku]

I have all this footage of me and Morgan out, and a lot of it is, to be perfectly honest, drunken camera stuff. And I've got some footage of Morgan just completely trashed and just looking at the expression on his face and, you know, back in the day, you're thinking, oh, we're all just drinking. We're all having a good time. But now, looking at it with a different filter, you know, yeah, I kind of do recognize that he. He had a problem.

[Scott Ambrosey]

So if that's true, then what was really going on with Morgan's liver and those test results? In the film, we see one of his doctors telling Morgan that it's likely a fatty liver disease. And according to Alex, the official diagnosis was non alcoholic steatohepatitis, which is a form of non alcoholic fatty liver disease. This is now an extremely common diagnosis, but back in 2003, it wasn't that well understood. The conventional wisdom back then was that liver damage is normal, normally caused by alcohol abuse, which is what you hear from the doctors. I spoke with Dr. Jeffrey Schwimmer. He's the founder and director of the Fatty Liver Clinic at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego. He's one of the top experts in the field, and I should say he was not involved in the film in any way. He explained that non alcoholic fatty liver disease is largely genetic, but that diet also plays a role. So if Morgan had the genetic predisposition, it's certainly possible that this extreme diet was a factor in him developing non alcoholic fatty liver disease. But it doesn't mean that everyone who eats like this would have liver issues. Dr. Schwimmer also said that those blood tests that Morgan takes at the start of the film, they wouldn't have been able to tell if Morgan had this genetic predisposition, and they wouldn't have been able to give you a great view into Morgan's liver chemistry. So in the film, the story that Morgan lays out is that he consumed only McDonald's and that's what caused these bad test results on his liver. That's definitely possible, especially if he had this genetic predisposition. Dr. Schwimmer stressed that like so many issues around health and nutrition and diet, it really depends on the person. And it's complicated.

[Dan Pashman]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season one.

[Scott Ambrosey]

I just knew him as a kid.

[Dan Pashman]

Long silent voices from his past came.

[Morgan Spurlock]

Forward and he was just staring at me.

[Dan Pashman]

And they had secrets of their own to share.

[Morgan Spurlock]

Gilbert King I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott.

[Dan Pashman]

I was no longer just telling the story. I was part of it.

[Morgan Spurlock]

Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Dan Pashman]

I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known.

[Morgan Spurlock]

If the cops and everything would have done the job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed.

[Dan Pashman]

I never expected to find myself in this place. Now I need to tell you how I got here.

[Morgan Spurlock]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Dan Pashman]

Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy Jeremy, I.

[Morgan Spurlock]

Want to tell you something.

[Dan Pashman]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 starting April 9 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear the entire new season ad free with exclusive content starting April 9th. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Okay, on to chapter five the Legacy when Super Size Me first came out 20 years ago, one of the many people to see it was Emily Contois. Today she's an associate professor of Media studies at the University of Tulsa. She has a master's degree in public health and has written a lot about gender, food, and body image in media. Emily first saw Super Size Me in the theater as a student at the University of Oklahoma. At the time, she knew that she was interested in health and nutrition issues that were getting a lot more attention across America than ever before.

[Lux Alptram]

So 2003 is the year that the Surgeon General of the United States literally likens obesity to the war on terror. He calls it the terror within. It is escalated to that extent that obesity is as big of an issue as the war. Terror far away, you know, 9, 11. This is the first time that it's called an epidemic. So it's being spoken about with the kinds of language we typically use for, like an infectious disease, right, that's attacking us.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Governments and school districts began getting in on the fight in 2003. California banned the sale of soft drinks in grade schools. In 2006, all of the big beverage companies agreed to sell only small, low calorie beverages in schools. And officials also turned their attention to students.

[Lux Alptram]

Arkansas is one of the first states to move to a BMI report card in the public schools.

[Scott Ambrosey]

BMI stands for body Mass index, and it's a calculation based on your height and weight. It's supposed to measure your body fat. And it's been used by doctors to gauge risk factors in health. But it's been widely criticized as inaccurate and not a great measure of a person's overall Health. Still, by 2010, millions of students were receiving BMI report cards, and 29 states had policies in place that encouraged or required schools to weigh students or calculate their BMI so that as a child.

[Lux Alptram]

Gets their grades and they're sent home to their parents to have conversations about their intellectual development that there would also be, right, their BMI ranking as a way to start conversations within family about weight and this presumed need, right, to force little kids to lose weight. And I cannot state strongly enough how bad of an idea this was, but it was one that was absolutely moved forward and at that moment where people really thought, right, like, obesity is bad, we have to intervene, but there's nothing worse we can do. They introduce all these food anxieties, body anxieties, right, with children. Like, we have irrefutable evidence that that causes poor relationships with eating difficulties with weight, you know, poor health outcomes from yo yo dieting or cycling through diets. That it can be much more healthy to just focus on delicious fresh foods or, you know, focusing on learning how to cook or garden or something like that than ever focusing on weight.

[Scott Ambrosey]

It's against this backdrop that Morgan is taking Super Size Me to schools across the country doing talks and screenings. But as I discussed with Emily, that backdrop today is very different. So did you get a chance to watch Super Size Me again?

[Lux Alptram]

Yeah, I watched it again with my husband. We watched it together that first time.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Like 20 years ago. Oh, you watched it together back then. You watched it Together now.

[Andre Zohara]

Yeah.

[Scott Ambrosey]

You know, What'd you think?

[Lux Alptram]

I didn't remember that. It's like the second shot in the film that you have what fat activists themselves have called of the headless fatties. They were so common in news reports about obesity, and they are throughout this film in multiple different moments.

[Scott Ambrosey]

These are shots of crowds of people walking around, sometimes in swimsuits on the beach with their stomachs showing, or shots of people's thighs and hips and bellies. In the film's intro, these scenes are playing out with the song Fat Bottom Girls as the soundtrack. And the shots are just of people's bodies, either neck down or with their faces blurred out.

[Lux Alptram]

They do not have heads, they do not have faces. They do not have eyes. These are people, and they're just being represented as these freakish objects, right, for us to look at and to, you know, abhor their bodies.

[Emily Contois]

I don't think I knew what fat phobia was when we made the movie. This is Alex again, and it breaks my heart to think of any young people, especially who watched the movie, where there's definitely a couple scenes where a fat body is made the butt of the joke. And we were so wrong to do it that way. And I think Morgan would agree. And I absolutely believe that you can be healthy at any size. And I wish I had known better. I wish I could take that back.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Despite these concerns, the film has been shown in health class and schools for years and is still shown there to this day. Before I talked with Emily, I asked her if she could reach out to her recent students to see if they'd watched Super Size Me in school. When she polled them, many said that they had, sometimes multiple times, because their school would play the film year after year. These students had plenty to say about it.

[Lux Alptram]

The first bucket of their responses was that they were really persuaded by Spurlock's message about fast food consumption being really bad for our health. They found that really worrisome. And so a couple of them said, you know, it really soured their views on fast food, and they didn't eat it again for years.

[Scott Ambrosey]

There's a difference between parents and teachers telling you not to eat McDonald's and seeing Morgan puke on the big screen. So it did have that effect on some kids. And in fact, in the years since the film came out, those franchises made a lot of changes, adding healthier menu options and posting calorie counts for customers. None of these companies have ever said that the film was an influence on their decision, but you can't deny the Role of Super Size Me in the culture at the time. That said, Emily tells me that some of her other undergrads had different perspectives.

[Lux Alptram]

Other students had really good health teachers, in my opinion, that they had more nuanced conversations about what might be missing from the film and what its shortcomings would be. But the one that touched my heart the most was one student for whom the fat stigma that is so on the surface throughout the film really affected her personally.

[Scott Ambrosey]

This student saw the film in seventh grade health class. She had the experience of her teacher just putting the film on one day with no context or discussion afterwards. Here's what she wrote in her response.

[Lux Alptram]

The movie did not help my self esteem in the slightest. I was always a bigger kid and this movie made me feel even bigger. Overall, I hated this movie and I would never show it to my students or to kids.

[Scott Ambrosey]

In early 2023, Morgan Spurlock felt a pain in his cheek. He went to a few dentists, then some oral surgeons, but he didn't get an official diagnosis until three months later in June. It was cancer, and it was in stage three. He went through surgery and radiation treatment. But then this past February, the cancer returned.

[Emily Contois]

Cancer had spread everywhere. It was in his lungs, it was in his brain. It was just, you know, so he had to come over again and tell our kid that it had spread. I'm sorry, this is so. It just happened, you know, it's just so hard. It's so wild to be talking about Super Size Me and remember him so vibrant and healthy and excited. And he was always the most, like, energetic person in the room. And to see him over the course of a year just really wither and diminish was heartbreaking.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Morgan kept his cancer diagnosis private. He didn't even tell close friends. So it was a shock to many people to hear that he died this past May. Alex told me that she really wanted people to know that Morgan loved his kids, that he was a great father, even during the hard times. She recalled a story from one Halloween in particular with their son Laken.

[Emily Contois]

So we asked Laken, what do you want to be? And he's like, cockroaches. Such a New York City kid thing, right? It's like, I want to be cockroaches. So Morgan had one of his friends who is like a costume designer. I wish we still had them. They were amazing cockroach costumes with the little legs and they were, like, easy to put on. It was so rad. And we walked around, the three of us, and we were cockroaches. Together. It was so cute. I mean, we were not even together anymore, and we had the best time that night.

[Scott Ambrosey]

There was one more story Alex wanted to tell me about, a story that she thinks Morgan would have loved to hear.

[Emily Contois]

One of my good friends, she was one of the few people I texted, and I was like, hey, you're gonna see the announcement tomorrow. Morgan died today. And she was like, are you ready? And I was like, I bet you $100. Within the first 24 hours, some vegan reaches out to me and says, do you think it was the McDonald's that killed him? And it was like, less than an hour. I was like, 24 hours. And she said, nope. Within minutes, people were like, oh, well, I'm sure it was that McDonald's diet all those years ago that led to his death. I'm like, please, people, come on, calm down. I know.

[Scott Ambrosey]

My God.

[Emily Contois]

Yeah. Oh, vegans. I'm an ex vegan. I can say these things now.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Thanks to Alex Jameson, Shawn Lawton, Scott Ambrosi, Dr. Emily Contois, Hachi Chuku, Lux Alptram, and Dr. Jeffrey Schwimmer for sharing their stories and expertise for this episode.

[Andre Zohara]

Thank you, senior producer Andres O'Hara. Next week on the show, I talk with the one and only Bobby Flay. We'll discuss how he got his start in food tv, why he thinks TV chefs lose street cred, and what happened when he called up the New York Times restaurant critic after a bad review. That's next week. Meanwhile, if you want to hear more Sporkful episodes, check out last week's show with Ed Gamble, comedian and co host of the podcast Off Menu. That one's up now. And hey, did you know you can listen to the sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app. It has all your favorite favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with a list, stars, and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. Right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com sporkful this episode was produced by me, along with managing producer.

[Scott Ambrosey]

Emma Morgan and senior producer Andres O'Hara.

[Andre Zohara]

It was edited by Camille Stanley. Our engineer is Jared O'Connell, and our intern is Julia Liu. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sport Club is a production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive producers are Nora Richie and Colin Anderson. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

[Emily Contois]

And I'm Corey. I'm Jenny.

[Lux Alptram]

And we're in New York City on our honeymoon. We just got done eating an excellent dinner at Anateca Maria, and we're here.

[Emily Contois]

To tell you to eat more, eat.

[Sean Lawton]

Better, and eat more better.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

That was Sporkful senior producer Andres O'Hara. If you're looking for more Sporkful episodes to listen to, check out their episode Is yous Recipe Lying to youo An Investigation into All the Ways Recipes Deceive youe Listen and follow the Sporkful wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dan Pashman]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season one.

[Morgan Spurlock]

Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil hole.

[Dan Pashman]

I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and the son he'd never known.

[Morgan Spurlock]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Dan Pashman]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2, starting April 9 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.