The Hospital is No Place for Fast Food Chains

 In a recent interview with Neil Cavuto from Fox News I shared my support for the removal of McDonald’s restaurants from a number of hospital cafeterias. Click here to see the full interview on Fox’s website. Here are a few of the thoughts I shared on air:

1. Hospitals are notorious for serving bad food in their cafeterias

It seems crazy to me that a place where people are sick and having serious, complicated procedures and transplants, is serving such unhealthy food. They should have an obligation not just to patients, but also to their visitors to provide a healthy environment that promotes wellness. This isn’t a mall food court, it’s a hospital.

2. Perception is reality

Having fast food available in hospitals is also praying on those who are vulnerable and are more likely to lean on comfort food to ease the emotional stress of being at the hospital. In the 2006 Pediatrics Study they even found that people perceived fast food as healthier if it’s inside a hospital.

3. Hospitals should offer balanced choices

They should look at their food environment and help people get their 1/2 plate of fruits and veggies with their meal. This means offering salad bars and serving hot foods with non-starchy veggies and fruits as sides — not french fries and white rice.

4. Change is possible — some hospitals are already on board

The Cleveland Clinic has been a model hospital in making positive changes to their food service systems. They don’t have any fryers, have eliminated trans fats, and the fast food they do offer has a limited menu promoting healthier choices.

So what’s the answer?

Ultimately no one is forcing someone to buy fast food — it’s a personal choice. I don’t mean to pick on McDonald’s alone, they just happen to be the “big fish” and are always targeted with these sorts of issues. Hospitals have the power to create a healthy, positive environment for patients and visitors alike if they can just take a step back, look at their food environment as a whole and make changes that promote wellness.

McDonalds Coupons on Kids’ Report Cards

Just as I was singing praises to the “golden arches“, a colleague-blogger at Shaping Youth sent me an e-mail about the McDonalds coupons showing up on kids’ report cards. Evidently, the school sells it as a sponsorship. It’s a whopping $1600. A drop in the bucket for McDonalds and hardly the kind of dollars that will help the school go far. I would think that schools should have the money to print out student report cards so to me this is not an argument about a corporation helping a school with no money.

Consumer advocacy groups are calling it “a new low”. Here’s an interesting article in Ad Age covering the marketing side of this issue.

There’s also an argument from a nutrition standpoint. I know many registered dietitians who would argue that it is not a good idea to reward good behavior with food. They would say that it promotes disordered eating. Many people are dealing with disordered eating behaviors even if they don’t develop a full-blown eating disorder.

So, above and beyond the issue of promoting fast food and direct-to-children marketing this could have dangerous, long-term psychological implications. Here’s an interesting article from Clemson University the contains a whole list of ideas to reward kids without food.

I still applaud McDonalds for doing more to offer healthier choices. A white-meat chicken-nugget meal with apple dippers, caramel sauce and milk has 375 calories and 13.5 grams of fat compared to a cheeseburger, fries and soda happy meal which has about twice the calories and fat. It’s hard to not call that progress.

But if parents don’t want their kids’ report cards to contain marketing, they should take that up with the school. Barring state or federal regulations, this type of marketing will continue. I wonder how large it is? Surely, McDonalds isn’t the only company doing it.

First Evidence of McDonalds Changes in Advertising

I’ve been wondering when companies who pledged to make changes to their advertising practices would start kicking their promises into high gear.

McDonalds pledge includes focusing on the 4 piece McNugget, milk and apple slices. Well, my friends, they knocked it out of the park with this ad in my opinion. Check it out. Let me know what you think. I saw this during the airing of Rudolph so I know kids were watching.

Of course, there is a long way to go. But if you care about advertising to kids, it is important to keep the radar on and watch change happen.

Here’s a list of the published pledges from other companies.