The director of “Super Size Me” was 53

Morgan Spurlock

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Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, whose first feature film was the Oscar-nominated Super Size Mewho changed the public perception of junk food, especially the McDonald’s chain, died on Thursday in upstate New York from complications of cancer. He was 53 years old.

“It was a sad day as we said goodbye to my brother Morgan,” Craig Spurlock said in a statement. “Morgan gave so much through his art, his ideas and his generosity. Today the world lost a true creative genius and a special human being. I am so proud to have worked with him.”

Spurlock’s family said he died peacefully surrounded by family and friends.

Spurlock is a West Virginia native, was raised Methodist, and graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1993. Over the next decade, he worked as a playwright – with his show The Phoenix Awards at the New York International Fringe Festival and the Route 66 American Playwriting Competition – and an MTV presenter. The latter came when his web series I bet you wouldwas acquired by MTV. Each day, the show featured contestants performing stunts or completing experimental tasks for money (such as eating a “worm burrito” for $265).

Spurlock felt comfortable in front of the camera and appeared at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival with Super Size Mea sensational docudrama that won him the Grand Jury Prize for Directing and a later Oscar nomination. The film changed Americans’ perception of fast food and led to changes in the way the food was served in McDonald’s restaurants nationwide. A personal essay-style documentary, the film shows Spurlock eating nothing but McDonald’s three times a day for 30 days. He reduced his walking to the US average of 1.5 miles per day and throughout the experiment he only increased the size of his meals when a McDonald’s employee suggested it.

When Spurlock gained 25 pounds – a 13 percent increase in body mass that raised his cholesterol to 230 mg/dl – and struggled with new bouts of depression, mood swings and sexual dysfunction, millions of people became aware of the effects of a fast-food-heavy diet. Six weeks after the documentary’s release, McDonald’s discontinued its Super Size menu. Although McDonald’s denies any connection to the film, healthier options quickly began appearing on its menus across the country.

The multi-talented artist then made several documentaries, in which he usually intervened to ask questions or address topics that were both pressing and mildly entertaining, including: Where in the world is Osama Bin Laden? (the then ongoing search for the most wanted man behind the September 11 attacks); Comic-Con IV: A Search for Hope (the pop culture event phenomenon); The best movie ever (Product placement and marketing in film); and One Direction: This is us (about the boy band); as well as the FX series 30 days (Guests spend a month in a lifestyle completely different from their own); and CNN show insiderHis last film was the sequel 13 years later Super Size Me 2: Holy cow!which infuriated the powerful chicken industry.

Spurlock also participated in the #MeToo movement as stories of sexual misconduct began to circulate in the media, Hollywood and other industries. In 2017, he wrote a blog post titled “I Am Part of the Problem,” admitting to a past of sexual misconduct and telling the world that he had been accused of sexual assault while in college. He subsequently resigned from his production company Warrior Poets, which has produced and directed nearly 70 documentaries and television series, and largely withdrew from the film industry.

He leaves behind two sons, Laken and Kallen, his mother Phyllis Spurlock, his father Ben and Iris, his brothers Craig and his wife Carolyn, and Barry and his wife Buffy, several nieces and nephews, and his former wives Alexandra Jamieson and Sara Bernstein, the mothers of his children.