This Toronto Star feature is about Dr. Harvey Anderson, a University of Toronto nutritionist and McDonald's advisor.

I liked what he had to say about the highly successful Morgan Spurlock film Super Size Me.

Some excerpts:

McDonald's originally formed Anderson's advisory council in early 2003 to help head off an anti-obesity backlash that peaked with last year's documentary Super Size Me. ...

In the film, (Spurlock) lives on nothing but McDonald's food three times a day for a month, and stops exercising altogether. After two weeks, his body begins to break down and he gains more than 10 kilograms. The film was a smash hit and was nominated for a best feature documentary Oscar (it didn't win).

Spurlock has boasted that McDonald's ended the super-sizing option in direct response to his documentary. That's a claim Anderson has been refuting ever since the documentary hit theatres last summer.

"Guess what?" he sighs. "That (the decision to end super-sizing) came about when this advisory committee suggested that to them a year and a half ago, when it was first formed. And they had already agreed to move on it way before that documentary ever came out."

Spurlock, Anderson says, is simply an anti-obesity advocate picking on the biggest target.

"What good would it have done him to pick on some corner greasy spoon?" Anderson asks rhetorically. "He could have gone to a greasy spoon, eaten there every day for a month and not exercised, and he would have been in much the same shape when he finished.

"He's not showing the evils of McDonald's, he's showing the evils of over-consumption. He's picked on McDonald's for the same reason anyone with an agenda towards our industry does, because it's a big target — the biggest."

To a certain extent, I think Anderson has a point. When Spurlock was being warned by his nutritionist to stop drinking pop and switch to water, he was pounding back milkshakes.

Even after his weight had really ballooned, Spurlock kept up with the highest-fat choices on the menu.

So yeah: If his goal was to prove that a sedentary, high-fat diet caused weight gain and other health problems, he succeeded.

Now, skip ahead to this winter and another guy who went on a McDonald's diet but who wasn't mentioned in the Star article: The McLes Diet, by Edmonton teacher Les Sayer.

He lost 17 pounds, but kept exercising through the 30-day period. His blood pressure was up slightly, but his cholesterol and triglyceride levels were down.

I remember reading coverage, however, that his diet shouldn't be taken as showing McDonald's was healthy either, as he missed a lot of essential nutrients by sticking to it.

If one wants a definitive account of fast food, read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser.