Statement: Vermont legislator urges McDonald's to stop making our kids sick

By Sarah Copeland Hanzas, Vice Chair of the Vermont State Legislature’s Healthcare Committee

For Immediate Release:
October 20, 2011

Contact:
Christine Chester, 617-695-2525
Sriram Madhusoodanan, 857-413-6428

Hello, my name is Sarah Copeland Hanzas. I’m Vice Chair of the Vermont State Legislature’s Healthcare committee and a mother of three.

I am here as a healthcare advocate and a mother of three daughters.  Since I was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives, I have been an advocate for the healthcare care needs of the people of Vermont.  Today, I join the more than 300 health professionals in New England to ask McDonald’s to end its devious marketing tactics as these actions are making our children sick.

After all, McDonald’s and its competitors look a lot like Big Tobacco and the alcohol industry when it comes to the marketing of a dangerous product to children. How similar are Joe Camel, the Marlboro Man, Spuds MacKenzie or Ronald McDonald? 

Like Big Tobacco, McDonald’s has made every effort to appear to be doing the right thing by children’s health. As early as 2006, McDonald’s implicitly acknowledged the marketing of junk food to young people was wrong by pledging to voluntarily reduce it. Yet, despite these pledges the Yale-Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity found that young children’s exposure to McDonald’s advertising had increased by 26 percent from 2007-2009. So, again, the corporation is promising one thing and doing the opposite.

Similarly, every time McDonald’s individual marketing practices have come under scrutiny in the last year, it has responded by deflecting the issue. When more than 50 percent of the public said they felt junk food mascots like Ronald McDonald should retire, the corporation promoted the clown’s charitable work. Most recently, when the toy in the Happy Meals received scrutiny, the corporation replaced a small portion of the French Fries with a few pre-packaged apples slices – doing wonders for their image, but making no significant change in the nutritional value of the products they are marketing directly to our children. 

Additionally, Big Fast Food has learned how to shield their corporations from the liabilities of making children sick and to use corporate responsibility to foster their brand image and compromise potential critics. Just consider Ronald McDonald Houses and how they might deter hospitals and physicians from criticizing their fast food giant donor.  No one would call into question the worthiness of the charity. But it is important to question its use as a PR vehicle, under the guise of corporate social responsibility, for deflecting criticism and attention from its very real contribution to today’s global public health crisis. 

As a health policy advocate, I am committed to keeping Vermonters healthy. Our health is our greatest personal and collective asset. Illnesses associated with obesity threaten our families, our small businesses and our state. This impact cannot be overstated!

More personally, as a parent, I work hard to make sure that my three daughters are nourished and healthy. We Vermont parents are competing against savvy promotions and bottomless marketing budgets that work directly at cross-purposes to what I want for my children’s health. Each year McDonald’s spends about $400 million marketing junk food to children globally. Studies continue to demonstrate that marketing undermines parents’ nutritional guidance and makes it difficult to overcome the lure of fast food to kids.

So to be blunt, parents and the health community have lost their appetite for McDonald’s unwillingness to address its significant contributions to the crisis of obesity and chronic diseases.

Today, on behalf of the growing number of health institutions, professionals and parents calling for change, I ask that franchise owner Peter Napoli and McDonald’s heed our concern, which is consistent with recommendations of the World Health Organization, Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration, Department of Agriculture, and American Academy of Pediatrics, and many more, and retire promotions for food that is high in salt, fat, sugar and calories targeted at kids no matter the form they may take – from friendly clowns to toy giveaways.

Thank you.