Ronald McDonald Gets An Extreme Makeover

By Linda Orlando

Starting Friday, fast food giant McDonald’s is going to launch a new campaign to teach kids about living a healthy lifestyle. Their frontman for this campaign will be the same fellow they created years ago to sell their food to the public, but just like everyone nowadays he’s not the same man he used to be. A spokesman for the firm that handles McDonald’s public relations said in a statement, "The new advertising showcases Ronald getting kids up off the couch and outside, and moving with a variety of cool sports activities, including bike riding, showboarding, and playing basketball." Such a fast-moving lifestyle would be tough to do in a clown suit, so Ronald decided to go shopping and pick out a whole new wardrobe more suitable to his new fun, energetic style. Although he’ll keep his big red shoes, his new threads will include uniforms for basketball, soccer, and football, a warm-up suit, and even a tuxedo (probably for formal events like the People's Choice Fast Food Mascot of the Year Award).

The restaurant’s new approach to advertising is in a large part due to the bad publicity McDonald’s has received in the past few years, starting with a frivolous lawsuit brought against the company by a group of New York teenagers who claimed that commercials led them to believe McDonald’s food was healthy for them, when in fact it was harmful. Although a judge agreed with the public that nobody had force-fed fast food to the teenagers, that wasn’t the end of people bashing McDonald’s for serving up misleading advertisements. Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 filme, "Super Size Me," criticized McDonald’s and other fast-food giants for selling people harmful food while trying to convince consumers that the food was healthy. So to backpedal from the bad publicity generated from that film, and because of the relatively new trends of Atkins, South Beach, the Zone, and all the other supposedly healthy eating styles, McDonald’s wants to respond to customers by introducing more health-conscious options such as a fruit and walnut salad, and the option to replace French fries with fruit in Happy Meals for children.

The question still remains, though—can a trip to any fast-food restaurant be healthy for you? Jill Shuman, a registered dietitian for Tufts’ Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, sums it up best. "You can pick carefully, but food prepared in the home is always going to be better for you," said Shuman. "Like most food decisions, McDonald's has items that can be considered healthy. You can decide to get a salad and not put dressing on it. The bigger problem with fast food is that once you start adding fries or a shake, you're not eating well anymore." Whether this new campaign with a slimmed-down Ronald McDonald will be considered misleading or encouraging won’t be clear until the ads have been around for a while. "It really depends on Ronald's message," said Shuman, "If they take it away from the restaurant and tell kids about the relationship between food and activity, that could be good. If he explains the difference between a regular burger and a Quarter Pounder, and how much activity it takes to counteract that difference, that would be great."

McDonald’s will begin airing the new ads around the world starting on June 10, along with new educational materials to be posted in their restaurants, such as newly designed tray mats that explain the concepts of healthy living. So as long as people read the message on their tray mats first, so they can learn about how good fresh vegetables are for you, then they can go ahead and squirt ketchup on the mat to dunk their French fries. After all, it’s certainly not up to individuals to be responsible for their own health; it’s up to the companies that force them to shove the food into their mouths. It’s about time McDonald’s owned up to that responsibility. Hope they don’t have to raise the price of Big Macs to pay for Ronald’s cool new clothes.