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Around 34% of children aged 2 to 19 eat junk food on a daily basis. Interestingly enough, the American Heart Association estimates that one in three kids in the United States is overweight. It’s not hard to see the correlation between obesity and junk food, isn’t it?
McDonald’s Role in the Obesity Epidemic
As we all know, there’s an obesity epidemic going on out there. Instead of eating at home, most children prefer to eat at fast food restaurants, most noticeably, at McDonald’s.
While we can’t blame all of our nutritional and health problems on McDonald’s it’s fair to say that the company played a huge role in it. The biggest problem isn’t even the food quality – it’s fast food, so you can’t expect much – it’s actually McDonald’s marketing department.
For decades at this point, McDonald’s has marketed their products to children. They are pretty sneaky about it too: the company dedicates more than 40% of their marketing budget to advertising in schools. That associates their brand with learning and education.
If you want your children to stop eating so much junk food, you need to invest some time and effort into it. Here are a few things you need to do…
Start Preparing Healthy Snacks
Another option is to start preparing more healthy snacks back at home. By healthy snacks, we don’t mean to make your kids eat more fruit or veggies. Despite what many people think, there are, in fact, healthy snacks that will keep your child healthy and satisfied.
Here are some healthy snack recommendations from the Food Network:
- Crispy rice treats
- Oatmeal snack cakes
- Frozen fruit pops
- Flavoured popcorn
If you want to go all out, you can also prepare healthy cookies and milkshakes. Preparing these is easier than you think. Modern milkshake makers only require you to put the ingredients in, push a couple buttons, and voila, you have a healthy milkshake.
Stop Using Junk Food as Bribe
It’s not uncommon to see a parent offering a food reward to their child for good behaviour. Some people do the opposite. They prevent their children from eating junk food as a punishment. Mother or a father may refuse to serve their child with dessert, for example.
However, using food as a punishment or a reward is problematic to say the least. If you say that you won’t go to McDonald’s until your child finishes homework, you’re sending a horrible message to your offspring.
By doing this, you’re basically telling your child that fast food is not only ok, it’s actually good. You wouldn’t use something bad as a reward, right? And this is not just us saying it, scientists say that this method is bad too.
Now, using rewards is ok, but instead of a trip to McDonald’s, use the following as rewards:
- Trip to a park or the zoo
- Art supplies or school supplies
- Sleepovers and playdates
- New toys or video games
Don’t Let Your Child’s Diet Become Monotonous
You can’t prevent your child from eating junk food completely. If you make your child eat veggies all the time, there’s a good chance they’ll become tired of your meals and start looking for alternatives outside of your home.
That’s why you should introduce a “cheat day” in your home. For one day of the week, you should allow your children to loosen up and eat something sugary or something grilled. New research suggests that introducing a cheat day will not only help someone lose weight but that it can also boost your metabolism.
Again, you shouldn’t mark this day in your calendar and make a big deal out of it. This shouldn’t be seen as a reward. Cheat day is there to prevent you from making your cooking monotonous and flavourless. Prepare something not-so-healthy from time to time. Trust us, your spouse and children will be thankful for it.
Final Thoughts
The only way to prevent your child from craving McDonald’s is to show them that there are better alternatives. Talk to your child, teach them about the dangers of junk food, and most importantly have patience.
Let’s face it, your child won’t stop craving McDonald’s just after one talk or one healthy meal. You need to realize that the transition will last for a while. However, once you manage to convince your child to stay out of McDonald’s, you won’t have to worry about it again.
It may be a difficult process but if you ask us, it’s definitely worth it.
It always amazes me that people seemingly pick on – only – McDonalds when they are talking about fast food…anything. Last time I checked… there was Burger King, A & W, Dairy Queen, Fat Burger, a bundle of other fast food burger joints, pizza joints pushing high cal food out, and the list just goes on and on and on… so why do people only pick on McDonalds? Maybe because it gets noticed if you do? How bout we stop just focusing on one fast food franchise and just say… fast food eateries in general… wouldn’t that be more fair? And by the way… no one from McDonalds ever said you should eat at their establishment every day, or even every week people… nor have any other fast food chains. If you eat fast food and don’t exercise you can expect extra weight I suspect. So how bout we get real about all this and look at ourselves… first… and our choices… and stop just blaming one fast food company for our weight challenges in the future. Own your own choices.
That guest post was all about owning your own choices. I’m not sure what triggered you, but actually, as the largest fast food chain here in the US and also abroad, it’s by far the furthest reaching thus the obvious touch point. Advertising to children, not to mention non stop to adults would definitely them be them saying EAT HERE, EAT HERE OFTEN! Which is what they want. Duh. It’s a corporation looking to make money off you. No to mention, do you actually know the role McD’s actually plays in American advertising, industry, minimum wage, farming, processing, and policies? I’d bet you don’t. But that’s a whole new point(s)/ ideas, even if they illustrate why McD’s deserves to be singled out. You are having a meltdown here, but you are saying exactly what the post does. Watch what you eat. Don’t eat fast food. Be healthy. Watch out for yourself. Make good choices. So….all the whinging is for what, what you see as the singling out of McDonalds? Feel bad for them later. The are far and away the biggest baddies for all sorts of reasons. But sure, if you want to get PC, we can swipe bold and say “all fast food restaurants”, but is taking up your sword in defense of that very specific wording (that doesn’t really matter at all) in defense of a trillion dollar company on some rando guest blog your biggest concern? If so, kudos. I wish it were mine. Your opinions actually jive with the author’s for the most part, so you are preaching to the choir on this one. As for me, I’d have made a harsher post- the fast food industry is pretty evil, and not just because of weight issues (though you should check out how hard they fight to NOT show calories and to supersize and the poisons they use in their foods and in farming because it’s convenient to them even though they know the harm it causes- or did you want to blame bees, too?) Tom, it seems like you were out to troll today (and try to drop links for some SEO) but you picked a weird one to rant on. Have a good day.