TOO BAD THE HAPPY MEAL DOESN'T COME WITH WILL POWER:

People Try to Lose Weight at McDonald's (VALERIE BAUMAN, Associated Press)

Inspired by the documentary "Super Size Me," Merab Morgan decided to give a fast-food-only diet a try. The construction worker and mother of two ate only at McDonald's for 90 days — and dropped 37 pounds in the process.

It was a vastly different outcome than what happened in the documentary to filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, who put on 30 pounds and saw his health deteriorate after 5,000 calories a day of nothing but McDonald's food.

Morgan, from Raleigh, thought the documentary had unfairly targeted the world's largest restaurant company, implying that the obese were victims of a careless corporate giant. People are responsible for what they eat, she said, not restaurants. The problem with a McDonald's-only diet isn't what's on the menu, but the choices made from it, she said.

"I thought it's two birds with one stone — to lose weight and to prove a point for the little fat people," Morgan said. "Just because they accidentally put an apple pie in my bag instead of my apple dippers doesn't mean I'm going to say, 'Oh, I can eat the apple pie.'"

So it's not what McDonald's food has in it, but what Mr. Spurlock hasn't.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 11, 2005 6:08 PM