Connie Schneider, the nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor for the University of California Cooperative Extension in Fresno, is one of the experts quoted in today's New York Times on the resurgence of the McDonald's fast-food chain, and the price some of its customers are going to pay for that upswing.
The company, which has, with great fanfare, introduced salads and other "healthy" foods in recent years, is riding a wave of cholesterol and sodium to greater profitability. It seems that the recent rebound in McDonald's stock has been driven by its Dollar Menu, which features items heavy on fat and salt, and not by the higher-priced healthier choices.
Those cheaper choices are preferred by younger customers, especially teens, who are largely ignorant of -- or indifferent to -- the health effects that may be causing themselves later.
The items are aimed particularly at black and Latino customers, whose propensity for obesity and diabetes is even higher than their white neighbors'.
"Restaurant advertising looks very fun and social ... But fast-food ads don't show you what happens when you're in your 40s and your cholesterol's high and your heart has to work really hard to pump," Schneider says at the end of the article.
Round and round it goes, and the rounder and rounder we get.
And your point is?
Yeah, good question, what is the point?
Are the marketing people for McDonalds sitting around in secret conclaves making blacks and Latinos eat this stuff? Do these kids have black and Latino parents who do not supervise their kid's eating habits? Does McDonalds have racially based marketing practices? Doesn't The Bee have La Vida? What's that about?
Do you really believe that McDonalds sits around targeting blacks and latinos? My very white kids would love McDonalds every night if I let them. McDonalds and other fast food joints care more about green than brown or black. Whatever sells, sells.
Be careful about making racist comments like that.