Also an active alcoholic during filming

The point he was trying to make is that people that eat McDonald's every day are unhealthy, and sure, the alcoholism on top of it made everything worse, but do we really think that MCD's is the only bad choice those people are making?

Like someone willing to eat a shitload of fast food (not for a movie) also is likely to have alcohol or substance use disorders, or eat unhealthy amounts of sugar, or not exercise.

I think a fair point was made regardless of the shenanigans.

Well that doesn't magically make mcd's healthy. Especially fries and sugary soda.

That is a funny coincidence then

Media and documentaries are not scientific studies! But they get people talking. And they get scientific studies funded because you can point to the movie's success and say "look, this is an important subject". And they get politicians regulating because they can see the people care. Whether the movie was actually influential or a product of the zeitgeist I'm not sure.

So in other words, the documentary was so successful in decrying the rampant hyperconsumption that was accepted in its time, that such rampant is no longer considered acceptable or normal. And on that basis, you consider it to be facile, obvious... "problematic"?

No shit its conclusions were already obvious to educated people. They were never the target demographic. Literally nobody references Supersize Me as a "study". It isn't, and it hasn't ever claimed to be. It's a shock story to grab the attention of the least well-informed segment of the population. That you're trying to call it out for not succeeding at being something it never claimed to be, and even more so for succeeding at the thing it did try to be, is not a problem with the documentary.

Whenver you come up with similarly hot takes, the comments always end up being filled with a you offering litany of obtuse bad reasoning.

I'm going to give you an argument describing why i think you're correct but also why you're getting pushback. I'm basing this off the greek discursive appeal structures i've been reading about lately, because its fun to try to apply them here.

Firstly, if people say its a great 'scientific study' where you hear it, correct them. Its sad but thats often all we can reasonably do. If they refer to it as a great study in humanity, then maybe it is. After all Supersize Me was about the mostly unconsidered and wildly successful upselling technique that had passed into the culture of the time. So, what does that say about us?

Pathos

Supersize Me is an exercise mostly based on an appeal to Pathos. An argument based around an emotional appeal.

My stab at the key emotional switch employed would be turning the blasé attitude around the then common, comfortable upselling practice "would you like that supersized?", to a feeling of angst when those words are spoken. I think Supersize Me was largely successful in that appeal.

Emotional switch: Blasé->Angst.

I found Michael Moore's documentary styles also relied heavily on Pathos. So maybe the style was de rigeur at the time.

The big question is, did these documentary makers pass from persuasion into manipulation? This is the same as the question your asking when refering to his undisclosed alcoholism during filming. Which is why i think you're argument that the documentary wasn't fairly done is right. Theres a manipulation at its heart.

But that doesn't defeat the very real effects that emotional switch from blasé->angst about the practice had.

So a successful but manipulative documentary?

Logos

The argument i read in your comments assumes the documentary should primarily appeal to logos. Or a persuasion tactic based in logic. No controlled experiments for example.

While there are probably plenty of examples of this throughout the documentary, I wouldn't say this is the primary appeal he relies on.

The obvious conclusions of the poor diet is a good example of an appeal to logos. But not very persuasive on its own, because no one needed to watch it to draw the conclusion that poor diets equal poor health. At least most didn't.

Another thought,

Its a documentary, its not necessarily an exercise in absolute honesty. Few documentaries can claim such an authoritative place.

I think its maybe why Louis Theroux has belatedly become so highly respected. Not because he was authoritative in the beginning, but so much of what he presented has since been borne out. Maybe his documentary series matched the changing realisations of the times, so have had a kind of Kairos?