McDonald’s super-size fries, and drinks going bye-bye
The title of the article says it all. McDonald’s has announced plans to phase out their super-size options. I’ve heard a lot of reactions to this, but the predominant attitude seems to be that this is a favorable thing. While I first thought that this was in response to the legal action that was taken against them last year, when families claimed that McDonald’s was responsible for their obesity, it appears that the legal threat is actually all but non-existant. Congress is even considering a bill making that type of suit illegal. Instead, it appears that this is mostly a PR move for the company, which is an interesting twist.
Were this a decision based on legal concerns, I would be disgusted — it’s each individual’s responsibility to decide what they are going to eat, and they need to accept the consequences for that. One person I spoke with said the current and projected obesity levels are just too much of a drain on the healthcare system, but if we focus on further privatizing healthcare (which I’m pretty sure I believe we should) then that shouldn’t be a concern. If McDonald’s is doing this because they believe it’s what the public wants, though, and that it will help their bottomline, then my reaction is different.
I don’t ever super-size things, unless I’m going to be sharing with at least one other person, so it won’t change the way I eat at McDonald’s. The only thing I don’t like about them getting rid of the option is that I’d like to see, as I mentioned earlier, people take responsibilty themselves — but if McDonald’s really does think that this is a wiser financial move, maybe it’s a barometer that people are being more responsible. Clearly the gained revenue from the larger sizes isn’t enough to offset the positive PR they’re getting from this decision.
On the other hand, maybe they’re just hoping that now people will get two orders of fries.