Introduction
Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead is a popular documentary film that follows a story of a Joe Cross across the U.S. as he attempts a fruit juice to help regain his health. Joe Fuhrman headed the research carried out by the Nutrition Research Foundation, which founded the basis for Cross’ journey. The documentary serves as a motivational and inspirational health education. The film reveals that anyone can achieve optimal health by using the appropriate methods. To affirm this, Joe Cross, the star in the film, sets on the journey with 309 pounds, as he suffered from chronic urticarial. Aiming at fighting his condition, he takes on a 60-day visit to America where he consumes fruit juice and water, which was the only way possible for him to improve his health. Within a duration of 52 days, Cross had already lost 72lbs, and after completing the diet challenge, he could no longer take his medications. The documentary, therefore, affirmed that fruit juice is an effective way of keeping fit. Assessing the contents and findings of the documentary, this paper will carry out an ethical evaluation and determine the ethical standing of the movie by analyzing it through Heroism, Consequentialism, and Natural Law theories.
Hedonism Theory
The Hedonism theory claims that happiness is a raw subjective feeling: For one to be happy, feelings of pleasure are maximized and pain minimized (Haines, 2010). At any moment, an individual can be happy, unhappy, or even neutral (Ng, n.d.). The concept of either being happy or unhappy goes beyond the assessments on pain and pleasures and evaluates the well-being of an individual in the concept of mental and spiritual fulfillment (Michalos, 2014). These aspects include all the situations that makes an individual happy or makes one suffer.
In the concept of the film, it is evident that remaining fit by losing weight is what made Cross happy. Moreover, Cross looks for an alternative to medications, as he is not happy with his current treatment and diagnosis program as there are little improvements. With this intent and motivation, Cross gets ready for a 60-day journey where he survives only with water and fruit juice, which makes him happy and he seems not to bother about the suffering associated with the journey. However, the documentary shows the other aspect of hedonism theory: suffering. In his journey, he interviews a number of pedestrians to shed more light on healthy eating as well as juice fasting. For instance, he meets Siong, a woman suffering from chronic migraines and an avid coffee drinker. Siong undertakes a 17-day fast that helps end her migraines.
Nevertheless, not all of the interviewed individuals had the same perception of the issue. Most of the interviewed people felt neutral concerning fasting. Most of the interviewed people by Cross were overweight, and they had nothing to do about it as they blamed themselves for their condition. These individuals disclosed that they could not eat healthy diets due to the lack of willpower as they predicted that their life to last past 50 years. These expressions show that these individuals are not happy with their current lifestyle and they have nothing to do it because it is the course of their lives. Moreover, the interview results show that overweight people are not happy about themselves; they fail to accept themselves and take the appropriate initiatives to rectify their condition.
Natural Law Theory
Natural law theory claims that law and morality are connected in one way or the other (Brerr, 2011). Brerr (2011) argues that the natural law theorists believe that morality defines the human laws and that humans should be guided by these their nature to choose the suitable laws. This law dictates what is right, good, and just to guide the man’s actions (Brerr, 2011). Besides, a man should accept the principles of the natural law by the right use of reason and should apply them to all the time and circumstances. As such, the natural law theory is founded on the belief that certain principles of law are inherent in a natural way that is discernable to men through reasoning (Zagorin, 2009). Knowledge, according to this law, is obtained through natural things apart from the supernatural revelation.
The natural law theory is more pronounced in the documentary. The first instance of this theory is the way Cross argues that the key cause of overweight is eating healthier food choices without doing exercises. With such an understanding, Cross decides to take his journey and survive on the fruit juice only. Dr. Fuhrman also takes his professional role, as a nutritionist to track the health changes that Cross experiences during this period and ensures that his health is not compromised. This is an intelligent move that Cross makes in the film as he understands that a dietary change may have an adverse impact on him; thus the need for involving this nutritionist in his journey. Consequentially, Cross drops all the meals during his journey and decides to settle on water and juice. Water is naturally an essential liquid that one can take. To facilitate his fasting process, he decides to complement the capabilities of water with fruit juice that will provide other basic minerals and vitamins for him to survive the journey and attain the goals of the journey.
Consequentialism
According to this theory, morality is viewed on producing the right kinds of average consequences (Suikkanen, 2009). The theory stresses that the best action that one can do is evaluated by the best overall consequences. The best kind of results that an action can yield is happiness. Clarifying on these claims, Suikkanen (2009) claims that consequentialism theory can be broken into two parts one is the value of the aggregate results, and the second one is stipulating the action taken if and only if there lack another action of higher ranking than the existing one (Sachs, 2013). More important, the action taken despite the perceived result should adhere to the moral constraints.
The documentary presented adheres and affirms the claims of this theory. The decision by Cross to undertake the 60-days journey were for the best of his interest in improving his health state. Cross weighed 100lbs and suffered from the chronic urticarial disease. He survives on the pills. However, he decides to take a new course of actions by undertaking his journey in the quest for more positive results concerning his situation, which is the case with the consequential theory that alludes that individual’s actions should attempt to improve their stand. The decision made by Cross is of significant effect as by the 49th day he incurred major improvements. First, he had lost 67 pounds while his HDL cholesterol reduced from 204 to 135, his Prednisone reduced from 15mg to 3.5mg, and his LDL cholesterol declined from 132 to 86. On day 61, Cross had lost a total of 82 pounds that constituted to dropping off his medication. These positive results reveal that the actions taken by Cross are justifiable following the positive and targeted results that he incurred. Along these results, he influenced other people whom he interacted with in his journey where others went to the extent of adopting his strategy. For example, Siong woman and Phil who also incurred positive results. Therefore, the positive results are evident in the documentary, which is in line with the claims of consequential theory.
Conclusion
The documentary has shed light for the overweight persons that there are easier ways for them to reduce weight apart from hitting the gym and take more medications. The documentary has made it clear that dietary change can be used to reverse most of the health problems. The important role of physicians in undertaking such a move has been stressed in the documentary. The film has shown some ethical standings such as consequentialism that deals with the best results of the actions taken by an individual. Moreover, the actions and decisions that people make depend on the level of happiness associated with the actions. The natural law theory has been shown to dictate the decisions and actions taken by an individual pertaining the morality perspective of an individual concerning the action. Individuals should adhere to the natural knowledge before taking actions, as this is used to judge their actions.
References
Brerr, A.S., (2011). Changes of State: Nature and the Limits of the City in Early Modern Natural Law. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Haines, W.A. (2010). Hedonism and the variety of goodness, Utilitas, 22(2), 148-70.
Michalos, A., (2014) Hedonism: Encyclopedia of Quality of life and well-being research. Springer Netherlands.
Ng, Y., (n.d.). Happiness, Life Satisfaction, or Subjective Well-being? A Measurement and Moral Philosophical Perspective. Retrieved http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/ykng/Happiness,LS,%20SWB-2015.pdf
Sachs, B., (2013). Reasons Consequentialism. Journal of Moral Philosophy, 10, 671-682. doi: 10.1163/17455243-01005006
Suikkanen, J., (2009). Consequentialism, Constraints and the Good-Relative-to: A Reply to Mark Schroeder. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy. Retrieved http://www.jesp.org/articles/download/Consequentialism.pdf
Zagorin, P., (2009). Hobbes and the Law of Nature. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
