By now many of you have seen my appearance on the Today show yesterday and I want to thank everyone who left such kind and supportive comments on Facebook and Twitter. I was of course thrilled that the Today show put a national spotlight on the McDonald’s documentary, 540 Meals, and on my Change.org petition against its use in schools.
That said, I did feel disappointed in just one aspect of the Today report: all of the sound bites taken from my on-camera interview related to my objections to McDonald’s branding in schools, but none related to the film’s serious flaws as “nutrition education.” So while McDonald’s own (paid) dietitian, Shaye Arluk, says on camera that, “We have to work with the reality that teenagers are already eating fast food, so we can’t put blinders on as adults,” I was never given a chance to rebut the notion that viewing 540 Meals in school will actually result in teens and pre-teens making healthier choices at fast food restaurants.
That same refrain – that if kids will eat McDonald’s anyway, why not let 540 Meals improve their choices? – has since come up again in my comments section and it was also posed to me yesterday by a USA Today reporter. So while the Lunch Tray has only about 1/100,000th of the reach of the Today show, I still want to address that argument here today.
Just to bring everyone up to speed, 540 Meals follows John Cisna, a science teacher, as he loses almost 60 pounds and improves his blood work by eating nothing but McDonald’s for six months and adding a daily walk to his sedentary routine. He reassures viewers that his diet was healthy because his science students were tracking “15 nutrients,” and he expressly tells kids that he didn’t restrict himself to only the healthful items on McDonald’s menu, such as salads. In fact, he tells them:
Some of the skeptics said, “Well, he only ate salads.” No. I had everything. I had Big Macs, I had the Habanero, I had Quarter Pounders with Cheese, I had ice cream cones, I had sundaes. And what’s really amazing, that people find unbelievable, is probably 95% of every day, I had French fries. I love French fries and that was a great part of it.
That quote — along with Cisna’s rather shocking instruction to kids to disregard anything negative they might see on the Internet about fast food or McDonald’s — leaves young viewers with the clear impression that they, too, can regularly eat unhealthful foods like fries and Big Macs as long as they “make the right choices.”
But how can a kid actually put Cisna’s vague reassurances about “choice” and “balance” into practice?
First of all, neither the film nor the McDonald’s-prepared “Teachers Discussion Guide” gives kids the single most important instruction: they they would need to first figure out their own calorie needs before figuring out what “choices” constitute “balance” in their own diet. But instead of saying, “Hey, kids, you’ll need to go online and find a calorie calculator, then enter your own age, weight, height and activity level,” students just watch as Cisna, who weighed almost 300 pounds at the start of the experiment, effortlessly loses weight by eating fast food.
But if 540 Meals is supposed to actually teach kids about calorie balancing, shouldn’t someone point out that Cisna likely needed to consume 3,100 calories a day just to maintain his obese body weight, so that he could easily consume highly caloric items like fries and Big Macs and still lose weight? Shouldn’t someone tell young viewers that a pre-teen girl eating Cisna’s “diet” would surely gain weight, or that a typical McDonald’s lunch of a Big Mac, small fries and small shake could easily take up most kids’ daily calorie needs?
Wouldn’t those be the the very first things kids would need to know in order to make “balanced” choices at a McDonald’s?
Here are some other critically important facts that McDonald’s conveniently forgets to tell kids*:
- Cisna quite purposely omitted sodium from his tracked “15 nutrients” — and that’s because he was eating on a daily basis twice the recommended amount of sodium for adults.
- On many days, Cisna had to cut his calories even more drastically, from 2,000 to 1750, so as not to exceed his daily recommended limit on fat. Why? Because many McDonald’s offerings are just too high in saturated fat to be a part of anyone’s healthy diet.
- Cisna’s blood work likely improved simply because he lost a huge amount of weight – in spite of and not because of his all fast-food diet.
- Perhaps most importantly, no one in the film tells kids that Cisna’s regimen was sorely deficient from a nutritional perspective, almost entirely lacking in whole grains and providing far fewer than the recommended five to nine daily servings of fruits and vegetables. If we really care about kids’ health, shouldn’t that be mentioned at least once?
So here’s the deal.
If McDonald’s sincerely cares about teaching kids about how to make “healthy choices” in fast food restaurants, why not scrap 540 Meals and start over with a film that actually tells kids what they need to know: (1) how to determine their own calorie needs; (2) how those calorie needs match up against most fast food offerings (hint: not well); and (3) the fact that most fast food is seriously deficient from a nutritional standpoint and shouldn’t be consumed by anyone on a regular basis.
Do all of that without a single mention of the McDonald’s brand, and I’d have no problem with teachers showing that film in schools.
But of course, McDonald’s would never create such a film. Why? Because it would utterly fail at achieving 540 Meals‘ actual goal: getting more kids to eat more fast food more often — and preferably at a McDonald’s.
________
* Supporting links for, and more detail regarding, all of the above criticisms may be found in my original post on 540 Meals.
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Sally at Real Mom Nutrition says
SO well said, Bettina. It’s all too easy for McDonald’s to hide behind the “you have to figure out what’s best for you and balance your choices” messaging.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Thank you, Sally! That film is really almost comically vague….
Donna says
Precisely. While your points on the show were on target, the Today Show did not do justice to these key points of the story. Next time they should skip your expert pear-slicing and give you more air time!
Bettina Elias Siegel says
I, too, could have skipped the pear slicing as I was so nervous, I almost lost a finger! 🙂 But yes, I agree – and it didn’t have to be more air time for me, but maybe another registered dietitian – and one who wasn’t a paid McDonald’s spokesperson!
Tina Engberg says
Excellent points. I read this before watching the segment. That’s next!
John K says
I fully agree with all of this and signed your petition to get McCrap out of our schools. I do hope that you’re also posting and going after the schools that have shown this garbage. They are as responsible, if not more that McCrap.
Pam Kaufman says
Thanks Bettina for making your point so clearly! My question is, do you know why schools are choosing to spend valuable teaching time screening this film? Do they genuinely see it as instructional? I find that so hard to believe.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
It’s hard for me to answer that. I think when John Cisna comes in person, there’s a bit of a “celebrity” appeal that entices schools and students. But there’s also the general matter of McDonald’s longstanding efforts to get its brand into schools which it does, in part, through fundraising vehicles like “McTeacher’s Nights.” So while schools don’t get paid to show 540 Meals or to host Cisna, they may see McDonald’s generally as a valued financial partner. It was notable, for example, that the Maryland state PTA had a lot of material about 540 Meals and Cisna on its website and when asked about that by the Washington Post last week, the organization admitted that McDonald’s had provided financial support. It’s a very troubling relationship.
bw1 says
“My question is, do you know why schools are choosing to spend valuable teaching time screening this film?”
The more salient question is why did schools start showing Super Size Me, before this project was even conceived? In the context of that reality, 540 Meals is simply a rebuttal to fallacious attacks against them.
Ruthie Burd from the Lunch Lady says
Hi Bettina – I want to commend you not only on your thoughtful assessment of the McDonald’s doc and its inherent flaws and omissions , but your blog in general. I came across it by accident and I am a big fan.
In Canada , we have no school cafeterias in most elementary schools so food is often more about fundraising than food energy and nutrition. Supporting healthier school food environments has been our passion for many years, and I would really like to share experiences with you sometime.
Congratulations on your dedication and the difference you are making
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Ruthie: Welcome to TLT and thanks for the kind words! I’ll be sure to check out your site and look forward to learning more about school food in Canada.
Amber Austin says
Bettina,
Thanks for pointing out the actual nutritional deficiencies apparent in the choices of most fast-food meals. Mr. Cisna’s “lunch plate” looks decidedly different from the “My Plate” ideal school nutrition professionals are using to truly educate students about choosing well-balanced meals. It takes more than just counting calories to make healthy choices.
I am confident that McD’s spent a pretty penny on this little endeavor. They are a successful company partly because they spend wisely – clearly, they expect a return on their investment. If there was not an expected return on this investment they could have just donated the same funds to an organization dedicated solely to nutrition education (or approached it from a generalized perspective). This is a calculated move aimed at creating brand recognition – shame on McD’s for trying to disguise it as anything else.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
“If there was not an expected return on this investment they could have just donated the same funds to an organization dedicated solely to nutrition education.” EXACTLY. Thank you for this great comment and for reading TLT!
Elizabeth says
So rational! I feel healthier just reading your good sense.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Ha! Thank you, Elizabeth!
Kathleen Prechtel says
The points you make are exactly the points which should be made as part of the classroom discussion and instruction. The 540 Meals video is the conversation starter, not the nutrition education in my view.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Right but … Can we really expect every teacher showing this film to come up with this kind of analysis on their own? Or do we think they’re more likely to fall back on the ready-made McDonalds discussion guide? This is in no way a knock on teachers, just a recognition that they’re incredibly overworked as it is. I wouldn’t have a ton of faith in my own kids’ school that 540 Meals would be treated as a springboard for dissent. I think it would be shown at face value, and that’s worrisome for all the reasons above.
bw1 says
“Can we really expect every teacher showing this film to come up with this kind of analysis on their own? ”
Well, considering that we’ve been told they all have to have masters degrees and get 4% annual pay increases just for showing up, it’s not an unreasonable expectation for them to bring some knowledge and professional judgment to the table.
“I wouldn’t have a ton of faith in my own kids’ school that 540 Meals would be treated as a springboard for dissent.”
What you don’t grasp is that it IS the dissent, and Super Size me is the springboard.
“I think it would be shown at face value,”
Great, since face value, minus all your inferences, is that Super Size Me’s depiction of an inevitable dire fate for all who set foot in a McDonald’s is false.
Christen Cooper says
Bettina,
Thank you for bringing all of the faults of this pro-junk food campaign to life.
The first thing that came to my mind when I heard about Cisna was: “But what about all the stuff he’s NOT getting?” (vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, etc.) Thinner does not necessarily equal healhier.
Also, as you aptly pointed out, everyone has different calorie needs. I fear that the message that this campaign is sending is “Eat at McDonald’s and you’ll lose weight! People who criticize Mc D’s are fools; there’s nothing bad about it.”
Nutrition is complex, more complex than going on a diet for a few weeks and losing weight. What in the world was this guy eating BEFORE McD’s that THIS was an improvement for him? Good Lord!
Best,
Christen Cupples Cooper
Meagan says
Hello Bettina!
As a nanny and cousin/aunt to school age children, this whole thing makes my blood boil. I am so glad that you are spearheading efforts to remove this media from schools. Thank you for explaining the flaws in 540 Meals with simple and direct language. It’s hard to argue with that logic!
I look forward to reading your updates- best of luck in your campaign!
– Meagan