MILLIGAN COLLEGE -— Fast food for every meal every day for a month may not be considered healthy, especially if you’ve seen the documentary “Supersize Me,” but some Milligan College students are conducting an experiment to come to their own conclusions.
John Simonsen, professor of human performance and exercise science at Milligan, said a documentary being shot now by Milligan students grew out of a desire to do a "proper" research experiment after watching the documentary film “Supersize Me” by Morgan Spurlock.
Simonsen said there were too many variables in Spurlock’s experiment that would lead to nothing but weight gain, including consuming high-fat food and getting very little physical activity.
“It wouldn’t have mattered what he ate; he would have had physical problems no matter what he ate,” Simonsen said.
Spurlock did gain nearly 25 pounds and became ill after eating every item on the McDonald’s menu for a month for his documentary back in 2004. It reportedly took him more than a year to lose that weight.
“So my hope was that we could demonstrate it was a matter of what choices people make, not only food choices but inactivity,” Simonsen said of the Milligan documentary/experiment project.
For the Milligan student documentary, student Jarod Hensley will be getting the minimum amount of activity required by the American Heart Association and the American College of Sports Medicine throughout the experiment while consuming only McDonald’s food. That means at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise most every day, and two days of strength training each week.
He will also be eating only food from McDonald’s that has been pre-approved by students in the human performance and exercise science program.
“We have had small orders of fries,” Hensley said. “It’s mainly been a bunch of grilled chicken sandwiches, grilled chicken wraps and smoothies ... a lot of salads, actually.”
The documentary will involve students and professors from various departments.
Hensley, who will be a sophomore this fall majoring in worship leadership, said he wanted to participate in the documentary because it sounded interesting.
“I just thought a documentary would be a neat idea to do,” he said.
Shae Judge is the student who is filming the documentary.
Another student or faculty member will likely analyze the receipts from McDonald’s and calculate mileage for a cost analysis of the experiment.
Morgan McLeod, the trainer for Hensley, will be a junior majoring in human performance and exercise science this fall.
He is planning and overseeing Hensley’s daily workouts.
“We both go and workout with each other, because I know it’s easier to workout with a friend or someone you know,” McLeod said.
The experiment will be completed soon, after 28 days.
“In the first week I did lose eight pounds,” Hensley said. “It was pretty dramatic. When I found out I was like ‘whew, I did not see that coming at all.’ ”
Prior to participating in this experiment, Hensley said he tried to consume around 2,200 calories per day. Since being on this diet for the experiment, the most he has consumed is 1,960 calories. The lowest amount of calories he has eaten in a single day is around 1,550.
The documentary may be screened for the Milligan community this fall, and Simonsen said he may try to submit the project to a professional conference.