McDonald's restaurants' staffs automatically serve french fries with kids' Happy Meals and don't mention the healthier choice of apple slices to their customers, a new study shows.
Nutrition researchers working for the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a Washington, D.C. consumer group, visited 44 McDonald's restaurants across the country and ordered 75 Happy Meals without specifying the side dish or beverage.
The side dishes options with the meal are french fries or apple slices called Apple Dippers with low-fat caramel dip. The beverages are 1% low-fat milk, 100% juice and soft drinks.
Findings:
•93% of the time the restaurants' employees served french fries as the side dish without asking if customers would rather have Apple Dippers.
•84% of the time the sales clerks offered a beverage choice. Soda was usually the first option mentioned.
•More than three-quarters of the stores had toy displays for the Happy Meals.
A Happy Meal with a hamburger, apple dippers with caramel sauce and apple juice has 25% fewer calories and about half as much fat as a hamburger, fries and soda, says Margo Wootan, CSPI's director of nutrition policy.
Of the 24 possible Happy Meal combinations that McDonald's describes on its website, all exceed 430 calories, which is one-third of the 1,300- calorie recommended daily intake for children, 4 to 8, CSPI says. McDonald's is currently offering children toys related to the latest Shrek movie, the group says.
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"It is good that McDonald's has taken some steps to address junk food marketing, but they shouldn't give away toys with unhealthy meals," she says. Fast-food companies spend $520 million a year on marketing to kids, and $350 million of that is on toys, she says.
On Tuesday, CSPI is sending McDonald's a formal letter saying that the consumer group intends to sue the fast-food chain if it continues to use toys to promote Happy Meals to children. The consumer group says that's unfair and deceptive marketing and is illegal under various state consumer protection laws.
"In the past, we've asked them not to promote unhealthy meals with toys and to have the default side dishes and beverges be the healthy choices," Wootan says.
Disney is making the healthy option the default at its theme parks, and it's working really well, she says. "Two-thirds of parents stick with the healthy choices. That shows it can work."
For more information, go to cspinet.org
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