Literature-Based Movies for Health Class: Documentaries, Books and Films on Health Issues

Supersize Me (Morgan Spurlock) Although this film won the 2004 Oscar for Best Documentary, Supersize Me has been all but forgotten in many schools. After a lawsuit by two teenagers against McDonald's restaurants accusing the Golden Arches of causing their obesity, Morgan Spurlock decides to eat only McDonald's three meals a day for a month to see what happens to his health. Morgan is determined by a team of doctors to be in perfect health prior to the experiment and so any health trouble can be attributed to his diet. He eats only normal portion or meal sizes, but if asked, he must supersize the meal. He also limits the amount of exercise he gets to 2300 steps a day, the average amount of daily exercise that most Americans get. He journals the experiment and the results are astonishing. You must watch to believe.

Have students make predictions about what will happen. Discuss their eating patterns; even though McDonald's and other fast food places have added more salads and 'fresh options' to the menu, a poll of your students will probably reveal (as it did with mine) that when they eat fast food, it is still the junk food they go for. Also obesity has replaced all other dangers as the #1 health risk in America.

Superskinny Me: The Race to Double Zero (documentary on several women with eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia) This may look like a rebuttal of Supesize Me; if fact, it's more of a different perspective. I always caution people who watch Supersize Me to note that the horror was not about the amount of weight Spurlock gained as it was about the amazing health issues he developed. We can't think skinny, we must think healthy. This movie makes a good comparison for Supersize Me. It show that there are several kinds of eating problems or disorders, including obesity. What and how much we eat or don't eat affects our good health.