# Is McDonalds making a big mistake with ads that respond to the "Super Size Me" movie? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 19, 2004, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-mcdonalds-making-a-big-mistake-with-ads-that-respond-to-the-super-size-me-movie/251195 "2004-06-19T14:57:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![stringy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@stringy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stringy)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-mcdonalds-making-a-big-mistake-with-ads-that-respond-to-the-super-size-me-movie/251195/101 "2004-06-25T05:33:52Z")
> [@cazzle](#): > > Russo didn’t claim that nutritionists recommend eating McDonalds as part of a balanced diet. He said he and McDonalds Corp believe that it can be eaten as part of a well-balanced diet. Sorry, I don’t think I was clear before. The reason I brought up nutritionists: in the movie Spurlock finds that in the legal documents from when Maccas got sued by some girls, they claimed that nutritionists say their food can be part of a healthy diet, and that once a week is an ok frequency to be eating it. Spurlock then rings up 100 nutritionists out of the phone book, and only about 15 (from memory) say that McDonald’s should be part of a well-balanced diet, and then only about once a month or less. Another 2 said that once a week was ok. (Another few said “Oh God no, don’t eat _any_ McDonalds!” which was funny, it’s a funny movie, something that hasn’t been mentioned enough in this thread so far!). So 98% of nutritionists disagree with the claims McDonald’s make about their food. If I were to eat nothing but vegetables for a month, I wouldn’t be getting a balanced diet, but I wouldn’t have doctors begging me to stop because they feared for my lifeeither. In my opinion, Russo is nitpicking and he’s misrepresenting the reasons Spurlock did what he did. Spurlock just wanted to talk about obesity and personal responsibility. For Russo to take it personally shows that he’s afraid of what might happen if we make our own decisions instead of letting Maccas tell us they’re all healthy now. > [@cazzle](#): > > I did not interpret his statement to mean that they had been offering salads and nutritional panels for “a few years”, just that the issue has become more of a concern for them. I imagine it would have taken McDonalds a long time to develop new menu items, source them, test them and finally implement them Australia-wide, and I see no reason to doubt that the issue has been on the table (so to speak) for a lot longer than the new products have been available. Fair enough. But the purpose of the ads is to make it sound as if Spurlock is being massively unfair to them. Maccas has been serving up crap for over 30 years and they’re only bringing in the healthier stuff now because of public pressure. If it weren’t for court cases and films like this, Supersize would still be on the menu in the US, and we certainly wouldn’t be getting salads or yogurt from them. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-mcdonalds-making-a-big-mistake-with-ads-that-respond-to-the-super-size-me-movie/251195/102 "2004-06-27T14:43:21Z")
> [@fluiddruid](#): > > I have been cooking quite a bit and keeping to healthy, unprocessed foods most of the time. Just a clarification: Whether a food item is “processed” or unprocessed has very little effect on whether it’s healthy or not. Whole wheat macaroni and unprocessed cheese can prok you up and whack out your cholesterol every bit as much as the Kraft stuff in a box can. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-mcdonalds-making-a-big-mistake-with-ads-that-respond-to-the-super-size-me-movie/251195/103 "2004-06-27T14:44:25Z")
(And by “prok,” I mean “pork.”) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-mcdonalds-making-a-big-mistake-with-ads-that-respond-to-the-super-size-me-movie/251195.md?page=5)