Yielding to pressure from concerns on the calories in McDonald’s menu, McDonald’s announced a modified Happy Meal option that reduces the portion of French Fries and introduces apple slices in all their branches in the USA – it’s not clear when branches in India will change their Happy Meal composition.
“McDonald’s will begin rolling out the new Happy Meal in September 2011, with the goal of having them available in all 14,000 restaurants during Q1 2012.
The new Happy Meal will automatically include both produce (apple slices, a quarter cup or half serving) and a new smaller size French fries (1.1 ounces) along with the choice of a Hamburger, Cheeseburger or Chicken McNuggets, and choice of beverage, including new fat-free chocolate milk and one percent low fat white milk. For those customers who prefer a side choice of apples only, two bags of apple slices will be available, upon request,” says an official statement.
“The impact will be an estimated 20 percent reduction in calories of the most popular Happy Meals, also reducing fat in those meals,” the statement adds.
The Indian Happy Meal is the burger + a portion of Coke + a toy. Image courtesy McDonald's
While McDonald’s has bowed to pressure in the US, in India, the higher calorie version continues. The Indian Happy Meal is the burger + a portion of Coke + a toy.
It’s the toys that are the big draw, based as they are on popular culture. The current toy range is based on characters from Doraemon, the Japanese Manga series, which airs on Disney in India.
One can understand why there is no great rush to introduce the changes in India – the problems linked to high calorie food and obesity as a result of consuming fast food (not just at McDonald’s, it must be said) in the US are a major health worry.
Each day, 1 in 4 Americans visits a fast food restaurant.
French fries are the most eaten vegetable in America.
Left unabated, obesity will surpass smoking as the leading cause of preventable death in America.
McDonald’s distributes more toys per year than Toys-R-Us.
The World Health Organisation has declared obesity a global epidemic.
Forty percent of American meals are eaten outside the home.
Many Indians don't think of samosas as junk food. Arko Datta/Reuters
For a moment, forget McDonald’s, since their Indian footprint is too small to be a great worry. ‘Indian’ junk food is. Says a report in the Guardian: “Because we are consumption illiterate, says Dr Anoop Misra, director of the Diabetes Foundation (India). “We may live in the 21st century and have money, but our thinking is so 19th century, that we have come out of a famine, so we should eat whatever is available without thinking of excess food or processed food. Fifty percent of parents and teachers interviewed didn’t think of samosas as junk food. The affluent may now know about olive oil and gyms but the lower middle class and middle class have little awareness. All party food has to be fried – transfat-engorged samosas, pakoras, bhatura – and while there is nothing new about this, party-throwing has shot up and alcohol is no longer a stigma.”
The same report warns of an impending crisis, though. “Childhood obesity in India is an urban, post-lib plague fuelled by too much couch, too many snacks and an addiction to apples that are flat, shiny and digital. It doesn’t help that the Indian metabolism is predisposed to fat accumulation around the waist. Aggressive fast-food multinationals have localised flavours and chutneyfied their advertising hustle to successfully colonise the Indian gut. Children have a special place in their hearts.”
Unlike in the US, there is no anti-obesity program that is visible – and the killer in India may not be the Western junk food, accessible to a few, but the humble samosa, pakora and their ilk.