McDonalds Brand Ambassador Plays Infomercials At Schools

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Science teacher and now paid brand ambassador of McDonalds’, John Cisna, has been rolling out his infomercial video to schools across America, informing them that McDonalds helped him lose weight.

In Cisna’s documentary, 540 Meals: Choices Make the Difference, his daily choices at McDonalds lowers his caloric intake to help him loose weight and he starts having a more active lifestyle. Walking up to 45 minutes a day, where before he did not exercise at all, and eating at or less than 2,000 calories, when his body type required more than 3,000 calories to stay at his body weight of 280 pounds, he informs kids about a ‘healthier lifestyle’.

However effective Cisna is at losing weight in his documentary, it is not a way to market healthy food and lifestyle choices to kids, explains Bettina Siegel, a nationally recognized freelance writer on children and food policy. Siegel states in her blog that this type of marketing, ” instills in children as young as age 11 the explicitly and potentially harmful message that, ‘There’s nothing wrong with fast food. There’s nothing wrong with McDonald’s.'”

Latino kids, who are more marketed to about fast foods high in sodium and sugar, are also already more at risk for type 2 diabetes and obesity. Having a teacher – an example of a trusted source at schools- come into schools and explain to Latino kids that fast foods high in sodium and fats can be part of a ‘healthy diet’, may be hazardous to their future health.

By 2050, 35 percent of young people in the U.S will be Latino. If unhealthy ads and people like Cisna continue to influence students at schools, Latino students may be more likely to choose unhealthy foods over healthy foods. Providing healthier school snacks and limiting the unhealthy influence of high sodium and high fat diets may help increase healthier lifestyles in Latino students.

To learn more about this story, and now how McDonalds is now taking Cisna’s controversial film offline, click here.

To find out how you can help prevent the movie from showing in your school, click here.