McDonald’s Happy Meal, under the pressure from health advocates, will now become a little more healthier. The company announced Tuesday that it would replace more than halve the amount of French fries and add fruit to its popular children’s meal in an effort to reduce the overall calorie count by 20 percent. A toy will still come with each Happy Meal despite criticism that the trinkets, often with tie-ins to movies, foster a powerful connection between children and the often calorie-laden meals.
Happy Meals account for less than 10 percent of all McDonald’s sales but they are a favorite focus point for health experts in recent years. Lawmakers and consumers have rallied around breaking that childhood link between toys and fast food, with the efforts increasing as Michelle Obama and national public health officials point to the estimated 17 percent rate of obesity among the nation’s youths. San Francisco, for example, has banned the inclusion of toys in children’s meals unless certain nutritional requirements are met. A New York City councilman is proposing a similar law.
“McDonald’s is not giving the whole loaf, but it is giving a half or two thirds of a loaf,” said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which is representing a woman in California who is suing McDonald’s for including toys in its Happy Meals. “This is an important step in the right direction.”
McDonald’s announced that it was changing the composition of Happy Meals in response to parental and consumer pressure. It also pledged to reduce the sodium content in all of its foods by 15 percent, with the exceptions of soda and desserts. It set a deadline of 2015 for limiting salt, and said it would spend the rest of this decade cutting back on sugars, saturated fats and calories and making adjustments to portion sizes.
The new Happy Meals will be introduced in September and rolled out across the company’s 14,000 restaurants by April 2012. They will all include apple slices, but in a smaller amount of three to five slices than the current eight to 10 offered as an alternative. The Apple Dippers also will be renamed after the company phases out the caramel dipping sauce, according to Tuesday’s announcement.
“It’s a trade-off between everybody getting a small portion and 10 percent of kids getting a larger portion, which is better than nothing and maybe will accustom kids to eating fresh fruits and vegetables when they go out to eat,” Mr. Jacobson said.
Parents will have the option of requesting more fruit or, possibly at a later date, vegetables instead of fries. McDonald’s will also offer a fat-free chocolate milk option, along with the option of low-fat milk or the traditional soda. The price is not expected to change.
Today’s Happy Meal with chicken nuggets has 520 calories and 26 grams of fat, and the reconstituted version, with 1 percent milk, will total 410 calories and 19 grams of fat, according to the company. The company said it had experimented with eliminating French fries altogether from the boxes, but that generated a lot of customer complaints.
Danya Proud, a spokeswoman for the company, said that McDonald’s tests also found that parents wanted soda among the drinks available, too. “That’s what we’ve really felt all along, that ultimately, it’s a parent decision to make about their child’s well-being,” she said. McDonald’s has long offered parents the option of asking for fruit rather than fries, although a study by Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity found that only 11 percent took advantage of that option.
“We are doing what we can,” Ms. Proud said. “We have to evolve with the times, and the times require us and our customers are asking us to offer more options.”
“Making [apples] a forced decision is a pretty unusual thing for a restaurant to do,” said Jonathan Marek, senior vice president at Applied Predictive Technologies, which helps restaurant companies test how various business changes alter customer behavior. He says his firm wasn't involved in McDonald's tests of new Happy Meals. “If they can get to a place where parents associate them with healthy offerings in a world of increasing fast casual options that are perceived as healthier, that will be good for them,” he added.
In recent years, McDonald's has also added healthier items to its Happy Meals in other markets. Its restaurants in Latin America offer the option of vegetables in Happy Meals, and it announced on Tuesday that starting in October, it will add a serving of fresh fruit, which will change according to the season.
In France, there are more than 300 possible kids' meal combinations that including a rotating menu of choices ranging from cherry tomatoes to pineapples to melon slices. In Italy, McDonald's offers kiwi on a stick. Happy Meals in Australia now also include apple slices, and many Asian countries offer cups of corn in their Happy Meals.
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