Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Week 4 EOC: McDonald's response to Supersize Me


McDonalds is a very large corporation that can be found worldwide. They are known for their famous burgers and fries, but despite their tastiness, they can cause some serious health issues. A man named Morgan Spurlock decided to put his health at risk to prove that McDonalds encourages poor nutrition and made a documentary titles “Supersize Me”. He went on a 30 day “diet” of eating McDonalds for breakfast, lunch and dinner. At the end of his documentary he ended up gaining 25 pounds, suffered severe liver dysfunction and developed symptoms of depression. How did McDonalds take all of this? “The company has called the documentary “a super-sized distortion of the quality, choice and variety available at McDonald’s.” It says the film is not about McDonald’s but about Spurlock’s decision to act irresponsibly by eating 5,000 calories a day — “a gimmick to make a film.”McDonald’s added entree salads with great success last year and has been moving to provide more fruit, vegetable and yogurt options with its Happy Meals.” The documentary definitely affected the fast food chain negatively. The sales decreased by $42 million in the US alone and two overweight girls from New York tried to sue the company as well. McDonalds used this negativity to put into a positive change; They changed their environment of their restaurants and painted their walls bright colors to attract the customers, they started giving safer and better toys to children, they’ve taken away some fatty foods or replaced them with healthy alternatives, and they also stopped selling super size portion in most of their restaurants. To promote a healthy lifestyle, the installed play grounds for children to play in and they also got involved in local communities and arrange games competitions in schools for children. 

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