McDonald's Hosts 'Nutrition' Workshop for Elementary-School Kids

It might be a health-conscious parent's worst nightmare: McDonald's, home of the 740-calorie Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, teaching their child about nutrition. But the nightmare is really happening. The fast-food giant recently hosted a workshop to teach six-graders from Stratford, CT about the benefits of eating vegetables and making healthy choices.

In McDonald's terms, that means something like this:

"I learned that McDonald's can be very healthy for you if you make the right choices. I usually have lots of cheese, but I had less cheese and more lettuce, and I had chicken instead of hamburger because it has fewer calories," 11-year-old Shannon Mullings told the local paper.

In other words, the nutrition education workshops, which the company initiated about five years ago, are designed not to get kids to eat healthier, but to eat more McDonald's. Maybe with a little less cheese.

The workshops don't go to schools; instead, they bring children into local McDonald's to learn about "nutrition" or rather, what's for sale. In Stratford, a local store marketer brought in six-graders from the Eli Whitney School to talk about the "health benefits of certain vegetables" and to give them "tips on making healthy choices." Kids even got to build their own sandwiches, but only if they purchased one.

Of course, the majority of what McDonald's serves isn't "healthier choices." People, kids in particular, don't go to McDonald's to eat salads and apple slices. As Peranai Sirichantho, an 11-year-old student, tells the paper, "he planned to get an Angus Deluxe, but chose a Big Mac because it had 210 fewer calories."

Is that a healthier choice?

An Angus Deluxe has 750 calories. A Big Mac? 540 calories and almost half an adult's daily values of sodium and fat. It's not hard to see how "healthy" by McDonald's terms is anything but.

This isn't the first time the fast-food company has forayed into schools to market themselves to children. They also sponsor McTeacher's Nights fundraisers, where teachers volunteer to work behind the counter for an evening, serving up unhealthy food to raise funds for needy schools. In 2007, they sponsored the "report card incentive," which rewarded kids that had good grades and attendance with a Happy Meal.

The Golden Arches is always looking for ways to do their marketing and branding under the guise of "corporate responsibility." Their nutrition workshops aren't any different. Along with toys in Happy Meals, cartoon characters in ads and sports sponsorship, they are all designed to get kids to eat more of their food, regardless of the calorie or sodium content.

According to the Connecticut Department of Public Health, over one-quarter of Connecticut high school students are either overweight or obese. To address the problem, the Department recommends, among other things, limiting the consumption of high-fat and high-calorie foods, and to limit eating out, especially at fast food restaurants.

The school department should heed that advice. Sign this petition telling the Stratford Board of Education to stop holding their nutrition programs in a fast-food outlets and McDonald's to end their nutrition workshops in schools.

Photo credit: Like_the_Grand_Canyon