My Big Fat Film

By Patricia Dailey, Editor-in-Chief -- Restaurants & Institutions, 4/15/2003

Yet another media stage is being readied for the ongoing scuffle over obesity, a new forum for casting blame in the absence of personal responsibility. Books, newspapers and magazines already have devoted a near-endless number of pages to the growing fat debate. Now, it appears that it may be coming soon to a theater near you, a development that could add further to the bias against restaurant meals, particularly those in the quick-service arena.

A New York City-based filmmaker has of late been dialing offices of select foodservice industry types, chatting up the grand Cecil B. De Mille plan he has in mind. It will be a documentary, he explains, adding with great enthusiasm that the film will very much be “in the style of Michael Moore.” (Whether or not he continues to use that selling point post-Academy Awards show isn’t known. Any artistic abilities aside, Moore, the 2003 winner for best documentary film, has been nearly unanimously panned for an Oscar acceptance speech that managed to stir the most audible signs of emotion in the auditorium of Hollywood A-listers, a chorus of boos as he opted to insert into his diatribe views on fiction versus nonfiction, the Iraqi war and President George W. Bush.)

Hoping to snag some talent for his fat film—or maybe just a few talking heads to bounce around a bit—the director’s communiqués describe “Super Size Me” as an exploration of obesity, the birth of large, value-priced food portions and the recent spate of lawsuits that has been filed against QSRs. The documentary will offer a “balanced” look at the girth of America, he says in his cinematic pitch, with input from health experts, writers, doctors, surgeons and lawmakers.

“We aren’t looking to make a heavy-handed documentary filled with long-winded explanations and fire and brimstone,” he wrote in an e-mail last month. “It is our goal to create a film that will entertain and leave our audience hungry for more information—hungry to the point where they will be inspired to seek it out on their own.”

Excellent notion, that part about providing information. And therein lies the rub. Anyone who digs with intelligence and depth into the tangled quagmire of weight gain quickly will come to view a picture that is more complicated than consuming a few too many fast-food meals, the current favorite whipping post.

Other issues are far more integral and directly related to obesity. Clear understanding of basic nutritional principles, the alarming lack of exercise and the simple arithmetic of too many calories and too little willpower are factors that in many cases dwarf the role of restaurant meals in America’s girth.

The erstwhile filmmaker confides that his project is “going to be truly amazing.”

Assuming that it ever makes the transition from grand plan to a real production, the amazing part will be a final cut that is balanced and fact-based, not a skewed picture starring fast-food meals as artery-clogging villains.