The Livin La Vida Low-Carb Show

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The McDonald’s “Beef Rice-Tastic” is available in Hong Kong —
and appears to come pre-digested for your convenience.
cc photo courtesy of Flickr user selva.

Hello and welcome to the world’s foremost low-carb podcast, “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore!”

In today’s episode, our host Jimmy takes a look at the marketing juggernaut of fast food giant McDonald’s and the latest research on their mega-media-indoctrination of children. What kind of power does this corporation have over our kids? Try this: a McDonald’s logo makes kids think that even carrots taste better–and Mickey D’s doesn’t even sell carrots!

Are your kids fast food zombies? Are major corporations unscrupulously marketing HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) and other high-glycemic garbage foods to the youngest of our youngsters? Share your opinion in the comments section.

Listen in for all this and much, much Moore in Episode 119!

LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE 119:
- Thomas Robinson’s study on McDonald’s branding published in August 2007 issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine
- Related blog post: McDonald’s ‘R Gym’ Concept Just Another PR Stunt To Avoid Obesity Lawsuits
- Related blog post: McDonald’s Fighting Childhood Obesity And Diabetes? Ha! Now That’s A Good One!
- Related blog post: Study: Fast Food Makes You One-Third Fatter
- Related blog post: McDonald’s Claims Their “High-Quality” Foods Are Part Of A “Balanced Diet”
- Related blog post: I’m Lovin’ It: McDonald’s To Print Nutrition Info On Food Packaging In 2006
- Related blog post: Kids Fried Junk Food Consumption Doubled
- Related blog post: ADA Reveals Fried Potatoes Comprise Half Of Children’s Vegetable Intake

Did you miss anything Jimmy said? Don’t worry, there’s a full transcript waiting for you — just click the following link!

Transcript of Episode 119:

Coming up…the unmistakable cultural influence of McDonald’s.

Hey there and welcome back to Episode 119 of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore.” THANK YOU to everyone who left comments about my second interview with low-fat diet guru Dr. Dean Ornish over the past two weeks as we heard him discuss his dietary philosophy as espoused in his new book entitled The Spectrum. It was a very challenging debate since Dr. Ornish was stuck on his rigid talking points and avoided veering too far off course from his prepared remarks. Even still, I’m glad I did the interview at his request, by the way. I’ll be posting some of my final thoughts about that interview this week at my LivinLaVidaLowCarb.com blog, so be sure to check it out.

Because of the tremendous amount of positive feedback about my interviews in recent months, I am pleased to let you know I will be conducting even more of these to share with you in future episodes of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore.” There are doctors, researchers, journalists, nutritionists, and people who have lost lots of weight that I am excited about bringing to you right here for your listening pleasure over the next few months. People like “B” from Season 4 of the hit NBC television reality weight loss show “The Biggest Loser,” the author of the blockbuster book Good Calories, Bad Calories Gary Taubes, Protein Power authors Drs. Mike and Mary Dan Eades, low-carb researcher from the University of Connecticut Dr. Jeff Volek and so many more. It’s an exciting time right now to be a part of the low-carb community, so hang on tight as we take this ride together!

Today I wanted to talk to you about marketing. With my blog, book, podcast, YouTube videos, and even my new low-carb “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” chocolate bar, I’m constantly branding and marketing my slogan and message about healthy low-carb living. It’s an effective means to get the word out about this amazing lifestyle change that radically altered my life and the lives of so many of you who are listening right now. Keeping that message front and center in all that I do is the key to effectively marketing all that I have to say. And if anyone ever doubted the enormous impact of the marketing blitz undertaken by the world’s most famous fast food restaurant on the most vulnerable members of our society–CHILDREN–then I would simply refer you to a study published in the August 2007 issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine that should scare the living daylights out of anyone who cares about the subject of health. This is just plain frightening if you ask me. Lead researcher Dr. Thomas N. Robinson, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and his fellow researchers wanted to examine the “effects of cumulative, real-world marketing and brand exposures” on toddlers to see what effect, if any, consumer branding would have on their food preferences. A total of 63 children between the ages of 3 and 5 from low-income families from the government assisted Head Start program in San Mateo County, California were give five pairs of identical foods and beverages–hamburgers, chicken nuggets, French fries, milk or juice, and carrots–that were packaged in wrappers stating they were either from McDonald’s or in plain packaging with no branding at all. Each of the study participants were asked to tell the researchers if the foods tasted the same or if they had a preference for one over the other. Wanna hear the stunning results? The children almost universally preferred the food and said it tasted better when it was wrapped in McDonald’s packaging than in the plain packaging. Remember, IT WAS THE EXACT SAME FOOD! Here are some of the other key findings from the study:

- 77% preferred the French fries they thought were from McDonald’s

- Only 13% liked the non-labeled French fries

- 54% liked the McCarrots compared to 23% in the plain wrapper

- 29 kids chose the McDonald’s hamburger, 22 the other one

- Less than one in four said all the food tasted the same

A closer analysis of the study participants who had multiple television sets in their homes and were more heavy users of McDonald’s found that there was an even “greater effect of branding” among this group. The conclusion of the researchers was quite predictable when they wrote the following in response to their study: “Branding of foods and beverages influences young children’s taste perceptions. The findings are consistent with recommendations to regulate marketing to young children and also suggest that branding may be a useful strategy for improving young children’s eating behaviors.”

WOW, can you believe this? In a way, it’s good news to know that McDonald’s has this kind of powerful influence over the behavior of kids that the study participants would even think that McCarrots, which don’t really exist on the McDonald’s menu, tasted better just because they are from Mickey D’s. But I for one have very little confidence that the world’s #1 fast food restaurant chain will do the right thing with that enormous power they wield over the youngsters. We’ve seen what they think is “healthy” in recent marketing efforts and it’s a far cry from what it could be. While the new R Gym concept at McDonald’s which is meant to encourage exercise is a pretty good start, there seriously needs to be a better effort on their part to get the menu choices even healthier for those precious little ones who are the future. It’s amazing how you just call something McBLANK and the kids go hog wild for it like it’s the best thing they’ve ever tasted. That’s powerful and absolutely blows my mind. Years upon years of indoctrination through unrelenting marketing by McDonald’s has given them such a branding foothold on all their competition. Nobody else in the restaurant industry or any other business can even come close. Although the young study participants were from poor families, Dr. Robinson said he is confident there would be similar results among the more moderate to high-income families as well, especially with more exposure to the branding not just on television but also on the Internet.

There has been a steady movement in recent years to blame fast food companies for rising obesity rates in the United States and around the world. Ever since Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me movie became a surprise independent big screen box office hit a few years back, McDonald’s has done everything it can to soften the backlash they’ve been getting, including donating millions of dollars to fight childhood obesity. That’s quite admirable on their part, but we come back to this branding issue again. I remember one scene in Spurlock’s documentary that showed a group of kids looking at famous Americans and they were asked to identify who these people were. Most of the kids were absolutely perplexed and dumbfounded by the most familiar of famous people. But when Ronald McDonald’s picture was flashed in front of them, they knew EXACTLY who that was instantly. That’s the power companies like McDonald’s have over what kids eat that has consumer health groups gravely concerned. A step in the right direction was made when McDonald’s and junk food companies pledged to stop advertising their products to young children. It’s a voluntary, non-arbitrary, non-binding agreement, so who knows how long it will actually last? With a recognizable branding in the upper ninety percentile for McDonald’s, they don’t really NEED to advertise anymore. Everybody knows about Mickey D’s. At the same time, though, everybody SHOULD at least know that fast food will make you fat–there’s just no question about it. But it doesn’t help when McDonald’s remains quite delusional about this fact by claiming their food is part of a healthy lifestyle. Riiiiiiggght! NOT! And while putting the nutritional info of the foods on their packaging was a nice gesture (although they conveniently left off the carbohydrate counts on this nutritional label–UGH!), it’s gonna take a lot more than that for McDonald’s to prove they are serious about the obesity problem and being a part of the solution. Studies have shown fried junk food consumption has DOUBLED and it keeps going higher and higher. Even the American Diabetes Association admits fried potatoes comprise nearly half of the vegetable consumption by children. EEEK!To make matters worse, McDonald’s thinks it IS serving healthier food because their Happy Meals contain Apple Dippers with caramel dipping sauce loaded with high fructose corn syrup and lower fat content in the rest of the food. Newsflash–that don’t mean it’s healthy! And even Dr. Dean Ornish is one of the health advisors for McDonald’s. So much for his insistence that he agrees with low-carbers that refined carbohydrates are unhealthy as he stated to me during our interview. I’m sorry, Dr. Ornish, but there’s absolutely no reason why anyone should be eating high fructose corn syrup. EVER!

And get a load of this politically correct response from a McSpokesman named Walt Riker. “[Making better food choices] is an important subject and McDonald’s has been actively addressing it for quite some time. We’ve always wanted to be part of the solution and we are providing solutions.” Oh really?! What solutions would that be, Mr. Riker? Pretending you care about health is nothing but a ruse and everyone can see right through it! How about offering some plain blueberries and/or strawberries instead of apples and a high-sugar dipping sauce? Why not offer the much healthier fatty portions of meat for children to eat to give them the essential macronutrients their bodies need to develop and grow into strong adults? You can’t answer these questions without shining the spotlight on the inadequacies of your overall business model at McDonald’s and therein lies the problem. While this study confirms the branding capacity of a company in its attempt to market their products, the sad truth in all of this is McDonald’s is the one with all that power over the children. This is all the more reason why parents should take back control of what their kids are eating and not allow the external influences take away their responsibility as parents. Interestingly, only two of the children in the study had NEVER been to a McDonald’s before, although close to one-third of them were heavy users going WEEKLY. This was indeed a fascinating study that reminded me somewhat of the work Cornell University psychology professor Dr. Brian Wansink is doing with his Mindless Eating concepts. Dr. Robinson should send his study notes to Dr. Wansink because I believe they are both on to something HUGE!

That’s all the time we have for Episode 119 of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore.” So what do you think about this incredible study on the power of marketing on your children’s eating habits? Is there a way to break this stronghold McDonald’s has on the hearts and minds of children? Share your comments in the show notes section at TheLivinLowCarbShow.com. And be sure to come back again on Thursday as we tackle yet another important topic relating to diet, health and nutrition. So, until next time, keep on livin’ la vida low-carb!

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