On Tuesday, McDonald’s announced that its famous Happy Meal would be trimming down to keep up with the times and answer an attack by health advocates who say that these meals are making kids fat.
The new version of the happy meal will offer less french fries than before, a smaller portion and include apple slices. The choice of beverage will include fat free chocolate milk or 1 percent milk in addition to soda. Previously, you could choose low-fat chocolate milk (2 percent) or whole milk. You can also choose fruit juice or water, same as before.
One of the biggest criticisms launched at the Happy Meal was the inclusion of the toy with the meal. Health advocates say that this is only encouraging kids to eat unhealthy meals by providing an incentive in the form of a prize.
Personally, while it is always great to have some healthy choices to choose from in a kids meal, shouldn’t the responsibility in food choice lay with the parents? After all, it isn’t many four-year-olds who are driving themselves to McDonald’s and ordering a happy meal.
In my family, we rarely go to McDonalds (I can think of one time in the last 14 months), although we do make other fast food choices on occasion, so this change doesn’t affect us so much. But I did think that the optional choices on the Happy Meal were already okay. We always choose apples instead of fries (my kids would rather have the apples) and the 2-percent chocolate milk or the white milk. My choices are actually more limited now, since my kids can’t have fat-free milk.
I think the bigger culprits of the Happy Meal were the actual main parts of the meal, the hamburger, cheeseburger or chicken nuggets. Soda is still an option for a beverage. Going from 2-percent milk to fat-free milk doesn’t seem like such a huge impact. Eliminating the soda or offering other meal choices, such as grilled chicken would have given parents healthier options for their children.
What do you think?
*Happy Meal is a registered Trademark of McDonald’s, Corp.