John Cisna, the Anti–Morgan Spurlock

Michael Moore wannabe Morgan Spurlock acquired his 15 minutes of semi-fame with the schlockumentary Super Size Me, in which he pigged out on McDonald’s for an entire month, thereby gaining weight. This was marketed as a stinging indictment of American society. Presenting the other side of the story:

After viewing that documentary, John Cisna of Ankeny [Iowa] – who is also a science teacher in the Colo-Nesco School District – put together his own amateur documentary looking at the fast-food giant. He and his team of students came to a much different conclusion.

Cisna lived on the following diet:

Ninety days of Mickey D’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but with strict daily nutritional limitations of 2,000 calories and trying to stay close to the recommended dietary allowances for nutrients like carbohydrates, proteins, fat calories, cholesterol. …

Cisna’s students used McDonald’s online nutritional information to construct daily meals for their teacher, making sure to follow the nutritional limitations he had set.

He didn’t limit himself to the salads.

“I had the Big Macs, the quarter pounders with cheese. I had sundaes, I had ice cream cones,” he said.

During the experiment, he also started walking 45 minutes a day. By the 90th day, Cisna reports he lost 37 pounds and his cholesterol dropped from 249 to 170.

The lesson summarized:

“The point behind this documentary is, ‘Hey, it’s (a) choice. We all have choices. It’s our choices that make us fat not McDonald’s,” he said.

Somehow I doubt his more thoughtful experiment gets the hype Spurlock’s received.

super-size-me
Fries put to an excellent use.

On a tip from Bob Roberts. Hat tip: Consumerist. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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