Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
The first time I watched it in high school, something I had to do several times since I failed Health the first time on a technicality and it came up in a couple of other biology adjacent courses, I immediately pointed out that the experiment was inherently compromised when he admitted that he was also cutting down on his number of steps per day since most people who eat McDonald's regularly dont walk everywhere the way he does.

Like, he changed two variables but he was only testing for one. The experiment is already trash.

And then he's not exactly making an honest attempt at fairly evaluating the "McDonald's Diet" when he forces himself to eat when he's full and goes back to eating after throwing up and I always thought it was weird that he was eating two sandwiches for every meal.

and what they don't say is that h was on a mostly vegan/organic diet before that and as anyone who understands the science of nutrition will tell you, sudden extreme changes in diet can have all sorts of negative effects on your body and it doesn't really get more extreme than that.

The fact that he was off the wagon when he made it explains a lot. You don't make good choices when you're either drunk or in withdrawal which explains the lack of scientific integrity and also the bit where he pulls out his camera and starts filming when he thinks he's having a heart attack, and uh... Either he was binge drinking off-screen and adding a whole ****load of calories that weren't accounted for in the experiment which would account for his disproportionate weight gain, the delivery damage(that the doctor explcitly compared to a hard drinker) and, depending on what he was drinking, possible also the erectile dysfunction that his girlfriend felt the need to bring up for some reason.

On the other hand, if he wasn't drinking that would explain some of the other negative symptoms because alcohol withdrawal is a hell of a thing to go through.

(And that's assuming that he didn't alternate between binging and going cold turkey throughout the month)

Apparently the sequel's better and he gets points for eventually coming clean but still.
Yeah no he was drinking constantly, overeating severely, and doing some heavy drug use during that time. The results of that "doc" of his are so skewed that I genuinely don't think we can even safely say the chicken one is better- though I've heard nothing for or against it, or even what it's about beyond chicken.

Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
I agree, the point of "30 day diets performed by single-case-study comedians with zero focus on long-term effects are inherently unscientific" does indeed stand. I am all for not blindly following whatever the newest documentary that can cherry-pick whatever evidence supports the agenda the filmmaker wishes to espouse claims. Me, I prefer scientists doing science.


ETA: Not that I'm saying you or anyone else here blindly accepts what these documentaries put out. I'm just exhausted at this point of people i deal with IRL trying to refute scientific studies with anecdotal stories and my frustration with that may be leaking out here. Sorry if i ruffled any feathers.
To be clear, my main issue with this is that a lot of people take these studies as gospel, and reason to abuse others for what they eat. The issue is the situations folk are in that force them to have to eat this food is what is ultimately at fault, not the occasional fast food burger. The article you linked even goes into that a bit; the fact that people cannot eat healthier due to the life circumstances is what makes food that isn't perfect for as negative as it is. Causation is not fully confirmed in these studies, and I think it is abundantly clear that it's not solely the fault of people "choosing to eat bad" that these problems happen.

That was all I was getting at, is all.