McDonald's and Weight Watchers...'cause that makes sense?

In this year’s Oscar-winning animated short film, Logorama, a maniacal Ronald McDonald unleashes terror on a not-so-futuristic city awash in commercial logos.

Spoiler Alert: Ronald finds his ultimate and violent demise as an air-borne Weight Watchers building falls on him crushing him to death.

Gross, yes. Weird, certainly. And yet, not nearly as disturbing as the real-life association that’s formed between the world’s largest fast food giant joined and the world’s leading weight management organization.

Customers in New Zealand will soon see the Weight Watchers stamp of approval on some McDonald’s meals and, in return, Weight Watchers will promote those items to dieters.

Several items on the fast food giant's menu including Chicken McNuggets, the Filet-O-Fish and Sweet Chili Seared Chicken Wrap, have been approved for the Weight Watchers program.

This move indicates an interesting shift for the normally number-shy McDonald’s. For years the fast food industry has claimed that changes to menu-boards to include calorie count information would be too costly, time-intensive and confusing to consumers.

It’s clear now that really it’s just certain numbers McDonald’s doesn’t want to see appear along side their menu items. Surely, 6.5 Weight Watchers POINTS looks better next to a Filet-O-Fish meal than would, say 23 (the amount of fat in your meal), or 520 (total calories), or even 1550 (mg of sodium you’re racking up).

Critics have questioned the legitimacy of such an endorsement, suggesting that the marketing implies that the food at McDonald’s is healthy when it’s really loaded with fat and sodium. Others point out that this sort of labeling actually adds more confusion than clarity in this already perplexing eat-by-numbers world.

In this end, it's another example of how the fast food industry would sooner confuse a conversation about health and diet than inform it.


Link to Story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/03/mcdonalds-teams-up-with-w_n_484061.html