If you feel like seeing a good film this week, check out The Sundance Film Festival award winner, Super Size Me which is currently playing in theatres. This original documentary is a supremely entertaining and slyly educational examination of the insidious way in which fast food has infiltrated our society, making North Americans the fattest people in the world. Believe it or not, obesity is the second leading cause of preventable death today, right behind smoking.

Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock risks life and limb to conduct the human experiment that is the focus of this documentary: What would happen to a young man in excellent health if he were to eat nothing but McDonalds for 30 days. This experiment would be governed by four simple rules:

1. May only eat what is available over the counter
2. No "super-sizing" unless offered, if offered must accept
3. Must eat everything on menu at least once
4. Must have three square meals a day - breakfast, lunch & dinner

The amazing and horrifying results will no doubt shock you the same way they shocked Mr. Spurlock and his team of doctors and specialists - a gastroenterologist, a cardiologist, an internist, a registered dietician and a personal trainer. Audiences sit and watch his mental and physical well being deteriorate at such a rate as to put his long-term health in jeopardy. In fact, one dumbfounded doctor compares Spurlock's rapid decline to that of a serious binge drinker destroying his liver with alcohol like in the film Leaving Las Vegas.

Behind this extremely funny documentary are some very important issues that are not to be taken lightly. Corporate responsibility and greed, lack of nutritional education, inadequate school lunch programs, and the continual cut-backs to school health and physical education classes are all accelerating America's slide into becoming a nation that is "eating itself to death".

One of the things that left the strongest impression was the moviemaker's exploration into the way in which corporations - McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Nestl쳌s, etcÉ work to specifically target and indoctrinate our children essentially from birth. In the film, more children could identify a photograph of Ronald McDonald than could identify a portrait of Jesus Christ.

What one walks away with from watching this film is the realization that it is essential for each and every individual to be a "conscious consumer". We must make choices for ourselves and our families armed with as much information as possible. If this film doesn't cause you to think about what we as North Americans consume, nothing will. So run to the nearest theatre showing Super Size Me - it may make you skip that trip to McDonalds afterwards.