Can Kids Even Fit Through the Golden Arches?

Robyn Tenenbaum, Contributing Writer, Food Culture

For an advertising major, my 10:00 am statistics class is definitely not the highlight of my day. In between heavy eyelids shutting and a few moments of nodding off, I did however raise an eyebrow to something specific in that day’s lecture. 

My professor was lecturing about how to analyze copious amounts of data and in turn, create graphs and determine (boring) statistical manipulations. Amidst a flurry of numerical questions, the subject matter of the investigation was one that actually caught my ear. The topic: the rise of childhood obesity and fast food dynasties. Bingo. I was up for the rest of the lecture.

It is nothing new that child obesity is on the rise. Thousands of articles and publications concerning this notion have been drilled into the heads of parents over and over again. The finger seems to be always pointing to one culprit—fast food restaurants. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 % of children in America between the ages of 6-19 years old are overweight or obese. This number has tripled since 1980. This factoid begs the question:  who’s to blame for this increase? More often than not, fast-food joints like McDonald’s or Burger King are considered to be the scapegoats as their business simultaneously grows.

But as any good statistics student will tell you, correlation does not always mean causation…

Does one turn a head towards the parents and attribute the rise of obesity to their caretakers? It makes sense: as parents become busier with professions (increase of women in the workforce, e.g.) and parenting perhaps falling by the wayside, their children’s diets are suffering. Could the lack of parental oversight be a catalyst to such a staggering rise in weight gain? 

How about blaming the entire entertainment industry and the media while we’re at it? Children, now more than ever, are being cooped up in the house playing video games and watching TV and DVDs while they could be outside playing and burning off all the junk their eating. Even Michelle Obama, who has launched her national campaign to combat childhood obesity, says the media is a major factor to the problem. 

In a press release issued by UC Berkeley, the effect of fast food on obesity, as according to data from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), “the economists serve up evidence of the link between fast food availability and obesity. To date, that link has been a matter of speculation, estimation and studies using data sets too small in scale to provide much validity or precision.” This just confirms that there is no way to single out fast food as the guilty party in the obesity increase.

Recently, I caught the end of a late-night documentary on McDonald’s. The company was defending itself from a swarm of critics firing the customary “fast food makes our kids fat” claims. In justification, McDonald’s, home to the famous “Happy Meals,” used the promotion of their new fresh and healthy food options as means to defer such assertions. Even though most of the McDonald's advertising still centers around the “Big Mac," the restaurant has made a vast improvement in marketing a healthier menu to adults and children alike. Now, kids can choose fresh apples slices or even low fat milk to accompany their chicken nuggets. While the kids will be content eating a food choices with a “recommended daily serving of fruit," Mom can enjoy a “Premium Salad,” a grilled chicken sandwich, or even a fruit and yogurt parfait. But with those darn Happy Meal toys still luring in children into the golden arches across the nation, does a healthier menu counteract the fact that the average children’s clothing size is getting larger? 

To pinpoint one “bad guy” in the child obesity dilemma is near to impossible. Statically speaking, there are too many variables that contribute causation to such trend.  While fast food empires like McDonald's will continue to be scrutinized for obesity epidemics, the power of choice still resounds as the most influential option. 

Should I leave work early and cook my kids a home-cooked meal? Should I go outside and play basketball instead of playing hours of Mario Kart? Do I order a salad at McDonald’s for lunch instead of a cheeseburger? Does being a pro-health parent produce soundly healthier children? America loves to internally debate such decisions and questions.  There is one thing society likes more than cheeseburgers and French-fries—how they look. It will be interesting to see how this movement of focus on physical appearance will counter the positive relationship between fast food and obesity in the years to come. 

Comments

[Anonymous]

IF SHE HASN'T GOT A RAISE YET, SURELY AFTER THIS ARTICLE YOU WILL GIVE HER ONE!!!!!

[Jeremy]

Boring. Terrible hook, turned me off. Unintersting story.

[anonymous]

fuck you jeremy your wrong this is so good dont listen to him

[Jordan]

GREAT ARTICLE ROBYN!!!
keep them coming!
I love reading them, Jeremy is clearly just jealous of your talent!

:]