For his debut film, 2004's Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald's food for a month and documented the results: His weight, cholesterol count, and blood pressure shot up, while his energy, sex drive, and overall joie de vivre dissipated. He kept his sense of humor, though, and channeled it into a lively, entertaining, justly acclaimed documentary that garnered a best documentary Oscar nomination, and won best director awards at Sundance and Edinburgh. Given the film's success, it's no surprise that Spurlock chose to return to the well with the print expansion/companion Don't Eat This Book. Spurlock's print debut suffers from diminishing returns, and Super Size Me fans may feel they've heard it all already. But the book contains a wealth of fascinating, horrifying information, presented in snarky, reader-friendly prose that jumps topics rapidly enough to keep even sugared-up, caffeinated American fast-food aficionados interested.
Over the course of 16 zippy chapters, Spurlock discusses his film, from its inspiration to his post-production weight-loss efforts, and he uses his experiences as a jumping-off point for a broad-ranging essay on health, nutrition, fast food, diet trends and trendy diets, the spread and results of obesity, the history of processed food and chemical additives, food marketing and branding, corporate influence and government regulation, international expansion of the American lifestyle, and much more. He leans heavily on factoids and anecdotes, with a hefty dose of personal conclusions, which can be too leading: He tends to generalize, especially when discussing how much better everything was in the vague, misty good ol' days, and his snide commentary seems more aimed at scoring points than actually making them. Like Michael Moore, he sometimes buries a perfectly good message under mocking hyperbole that may entertain his choir, but seems likely to alienate the undecided target audience that actually needs to learn what he's trying to teach.
Spurlock does end his book on a positive note, presenting a call to arms for food education and enlightenment, and citing a few schools that are actively combating obesity and nutritional ignorance. Nonetheless, Don't Eat This Book is monumentally depressing. Where Super Size Me was peppy and cheerfully incredulous, Don't Eat This Book reads more like a doomsday screed, heavy on the horror stories, accusations, and breast-beating, and light on the light at the end of the tunnel. But like any muckraking journalist, Spurlock isn't out to provide comfort. He's trying to shake inert readers out of complacency. Don't Eat This Book is less entertaining and less essential than Super Size Me, but it similarly amounts to a swift kick to America's ever-widening ass.