RELEASE: McDonald’s urged to assess “health footprint” Resolution introduced to evaluate true costs of marketing to kids

For immediate release
May 19, 2011

Christine Chester, 857-413-6097
Nick Guroff, 617-784-4753

OAK BROOK, IL – On the heels of the introduction of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines urging corporations to stop marketing junk food to kids, McDonald’s is facing another challenge to clean-up its act. At its annual meeting today, the first ever shareholder resolution was introduced concerning a corporation’s “health footprint.”

The resolution, submitted by The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia in partnership with Corporate Accountability International, was supported by 13 additional institutional investors including Catholic Health East - a system that includes over 100 hospitals and health care agencies from Maine to Florida. It calls for McDonald’s, in light of “the contribution of the fast food industry to the global epidemic of childhood obesity and diet-related disease,” to produce a report assessing “the potential impact of public concerns and evolving public policy on the company’s finances and operations.”

“McDonald’s has long left a critical element of its annual earning reports off the books – the spiraling costs to our children’s health and the healthcare system from its business practices,” said Kelle Louaillier, Executive Director of Corporate Accountability International. “Starting with this landmark resolution, it’s time the corporation stopped attempting to nutri-wash away the costs of its marketing and overall business practices to shareholders and the public.”

McDonald’s financial performance was strong in 2010, surviving the economic downturn on the back of its dollar menu and core products. However, growing awareness of its product’s harms are an increasing liability.

To maintain and expand market share, or “increase relevance,” the corporation has trotted out a range of public relations and sales gimmicks aimed at nutri-washing its image. This year, the corporation debuted oatmeal with the nutritional value of a Snicker’s bar, strawberry lemonade that has more sugar than Coca-Cola and smoothies that rival a medium fries for calories – focusing its promotions for such items on their supposed healthfulness.

This year, the corporation has also poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into opposing measures like San Francisco’s Healthy Meals Incentive ordinance, which sets basic nutritional standards for kids’ meals accompanied by toy giveaways. McDonald’s and the National Restaurant Association have advanced public polices preempting similar laws to San Francisco’s in Florida and Arizona. From its aggressive engagement in the policy arena, it’s clear the corporation sees growing public awareness regarding the harms of both its product and marketing as a liability for its business; a liability, the resolution contends, the corporation should quantify and shareholders should know about.

"McDonald’s spends inordinate resources nutri-washing its brand and questionable corporate social responsibility which often interferes with good public health policy,” said Dr. Don Zeigler, Director of Prevention & Health Promotion at American Medical Association. “If McDonald’s was to instead publicly assess how much such practices cost the corporation as well as the impact on health, it might actually see that doing the right thing – like stopping its marketing of junk food to kids – is not just more ethically defensible but a better proposition and would improve its corporate image.”

The resolution received a six percent vote. Generally such resolutions face an uphill climb given the opposition of the Board. Resolutions proposed in the past, such as the Humane Society’s resolution proposed in 2009 and 2010 urging McDonald’s to buy cage free eggs have tended to raise the visibility of important issues regarding the impact of the corporation’s operations among a wider audience – most notably shareholders.

In the meantime, the resolution provides added impetus for the corporation to reduce its health footprint. Just yesterday, more than 550 health professionals from all 50 states called on the corporation through a series of full-page ads in the nation’s newspapers to retire Ronald McDonald and stop marketing junk food to kids. High profile signers included Dr. Patch Adams and Dr. Walter Willett, Chair of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. Institutions like the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Chicago Hispanic Health Coalition and Mercy Hospital and Medical Center also lent their name.

“We’re in the middle of a public health crisis, a virtual slow motion catastrophe of non-communicable diseases, which is exacting a crippling human toll. Parents and the health community have lost their appetite for McDonald’s empty promises and unwillingness to truly address its significant contributions to the crisis,” said Zeigler.

Ziegler and other health professionals attended the annual meeting to voice their support for the resolution and urge the corporation to stop marketing junk food to kids. He personally delivered 20,000 petition signatures calling on the corporation to change course. Speakers, including Ziegler,  also argued that McDonald’s is inviting a public relations liability by opposing a practical measure to assess the corporation’s health footprint.

The ad featuring the open letter to CEO Skinner will continue to run in more newspapers and online. The ads are being placed by Corporate Accountability International and its campaign to Value [the] Meal with support from its members and signatories across the country.

Click here to read the full resolution.
Click here to view the letter to McDonald’s and signatories to date.
Click here to view speaker statements.

 ###