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McDonald’s is removing cheeseburgers, shrinking French fry portions, and making chocolate milk less sugary in U.S. Happy Meals, in an effort to make its children’s food more healthy, Reuters reports.
The food company, first the first time, will set global limits for calories, sodium, saturated fat and added sugar in Happy Meals. The new standards will be implemented by June 2018.
This is certainly a positive step.
But it also begs the question: Can a Happy Meal really ever be healthy?
This is an especially important question for Latino families. They tend to live in neighborhoods where fast food restaurants far outrank options for health food, according to a Salud America! research review.
“Taken together, the changes do not transform burgers or chicken nuggets into health foods,” writes Caitlin Dewey of the Washington Post. “But McDonald’s and public health experts who have reviewed the chain’s plans say they have the potential to incrementally improve the diets of millions of children.”
We urge you to check out the rest of Dewey’s story on McDonald’s here.
What else can you do?
Sign up with Salud America! to stay up to date with the latest in health news for Latino families. And take action to push restaurants to create healthier food environments for kids with the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
By The Numbers
1
Supermarket
for every Latino neighborhood, compared to 3 for every non-Latino neighborhood
