McDonalds to phase out supersize menu items to distance itself from class action lawsuits linking fast food with obesity

Friday, April 23, 2004 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: junk food, obesity, fast food

McDonalds has announced it will phase out its supersized menu items this year, amid rising awareness that its fast food products are being increasingly blamed for promoting obesity. That's the news you'll read everywhere else, but here's the real story: McDonalds can see it coming: a flood of lawsuits blaming the food giant for widespread obesity. Nearly 1/3 of the U.S. population is clinically obese, and you can bet most of those people eat at McDonalds with some frequency. Honestly, McDonalds does share some of the blame here, for it has promoted and sold truly mammoth portions of disease-causing foods and beverages without bothering to inform the public that consuming these products would lead to obesity (among other health concerns). Finally, after decades of consuming Big Macs and (yuck!) Chicken McNuggets, people are figuring it out: the food causes the disease.

To combat this expected lawsuit threat, McDonalds is shaping up their menu. This elimination of Supersize menu items is just the beginning. You can expect McDonalds to further evolve their menu to try to move away from the "junk food" image it has earned over the years. Does this mean McDonalds is going to offer all-natural, organic, healthful menu items to the public? What, are you dreaming or something? Get real. They're just going to distance themselves from the risk of a major class action lawsuit, that's all. This menu change is a corporate strategy for reducing financial risk, nothing more. McDonalds isn't about to put "making people healthy" at the top of their list of priorities. But maybe that will change their giant signs from "Over 1 billion served" to read, "Over 1 billion made clinically obese."