Seven Oaks Magazine.

Depending on what side of the sesame seed bun you stand on, it’s either the best or worst of times for the fast food industry. Sure, the fast food chains have been taking some big hits of late; not least from Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me which has helped put burgers and fries firmly back on –or off –the menu on both sides of the Atlantic.

Spurlock’s low-budget film –which saw the man behind MTV’s “I Bet You Will” subsist on a supersized diet of McDonald’s for 30 days to considerable detrimental impact to his health –has been largely credited with McDonald’s preemptive decision to launch the GoActive Happy Meal one day before the film had its US premiere. Showing remarkable powers of prescience, McDonald’s also decided to employ Spurlock’s weapon of choice – the pedometer – as a free GoActive giveaway to offset any further criticisms raised by the film’s central contention that McDonald’s fails to make its customers aware of the dangers of a sedentary, Big Mac-based lifestyle.

The film, which helped Spurlock bag the best director prize at the Sundance film festival, shows in graphic detail (we see Spurlock vomiting out of his car window on only the second day of his 30 days in the wilderness dietary experiment) the effects of a fast food only diet.

Predictable gags about reduced libido aside, Spurlock’s film is a potent and timely reminder of the health dangers associative of slavishly following a junk food lifestyle. Considered by his medical team to enjoy above average health before his junk food splurge, Spurlock’s cholesterol level raced to 65 points as he gained an extra 25 pounds and saw his liver turn to the sort of toxic sludge normally associated with the drinking habits of the more battle hardened residents of skid row.

Such has been the unexpected success of Spurlock’s film that Soso Whaley, an animal trainer and adjunct fellow of the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute think tank (“a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government”), embarked on her own 30-day McDonald’s diet as a response to Supersize Me. Whaley, who claims to have lost 10lbs and dropped her cholesterol by 40 points intends to release her own alternative documentary later in the year. Critics point to the fact that, despite Whaley’s insistence on being baggage free, the Competitive Enterprise Institute issued a press release claiming that Whaley would “eat at McDonald’s for 30 days and lose weight” before she had even started the diet. Whaley herself has also strongly aligned herself with the fast food giants, decrying Spurlock’s efforts as “junk science”. Speaking on Paul Harris’ St. Louis radio show (“The big 550 - KTRS”), Whaley attacked Spurlock’s deplorable assault on McDonald’s. "The thing that really kills me is that Morgan Spurlock claims he's going after a corporation or trying to 'save a population' but McDonald's doesn't own all of those restaurants. Some of those are owned by franchisees or families or smaller corporations, so to pick on McDonald's is really unfair."

Following Moore’s Law that you cannot be said to have earned your spurs as a guerilla documentary-maker until you have your own cottage backlash industry, Spurlock has also managed to raised the collective ire of Tech Central Station, an “award winning news site that focuses on science and technology at the intersection of public policy.” According to Tech Central Station’s James K. Glassman, “Super Size Me is not a serious look at a real health problem. It is, instead, an outrageously dishonest and dangerous piece of self- promotion. Through his antics, Spurlock sends precisely the wrong image. He absolves us of responsibility for our fitness. We aren’t to blame for being fat; big corporations are!”

Claiming that the numbers don’t add up, Tech Central calculated that Spurlock would need to have eaten more than 5,000 calories a day to account for his weight gain, yet super-sizing the highest calorie McDonald’s meal every day for 30 days and having the biggest breakfast every day with hash browns and a large orange juice still creates more than a 10,000 calorie shortfall. Tech Central Station counts The Coca Cola Company and McDonald’s among its corporate patrons who enjoy a shared faith in technology and free markets (that the opinions expressed on the site conveniently dovetail those of contributing corporate sponsors is mere happenstance).

Yet, Spurlock’s film and the recent raft of well-received books looking at the underbelly of fast food consumption by the likes of Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal) and Greg Critser (Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World) aside, how imperiled are the fast food companies? The answer, both in Britain and America, is: not very much. In the US, Orlando congressman Ric Keller’s Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act (better known as the Cheeseburger Bill) won the approval of the House of Representatives in March. The courts, not Congress, should judge the frivolity or otherwise of future obesity lawsuits. According to House leader Tom Delay, “Ronald McDonald made me do it” would no longer be considered a legitimate basis for any future litigation.

Two weeks ago UK telecoms watchdog Ofcom ruled out a ban on television advertising of food and drink to children on the grounds that a total ban would be “ineffective” in combating childhood obesity compared to other alternatives such as promoting exercise. According to Ofcom Chief Executive Stephen Carter, “television advertising clearly has an influence and equally clearly there is a need for a tightening of specific rules. However, a total ban would be neither proportionate nor, in isolation, effective.” The absence of “an objective system categorising defined foods” would result in an absolute food advertising ban; regardless of the actual nutritional value or potentially positive contribution to health. Moreover, any ban would undermine investment in commercial television children’s programming, therefore reducing “choice and innovation” for younger audiences. Ofcom’s research identified childhood obesity as a multi-faceted problem which will require further work by a number of agencies, government departments and the food industry in partnership. According to Ofcom, “the available research evidence shows that food promotion has a causal effect on children’s food preferences, knowledge and behaviour, though this is a modest effect by comparison with more influential factors such as parental diet.”

Of course, this was hardly surprising, given the tenor of a supplicant speech made by Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell to the UK advertising industry in March. Claiming to be “on the case”, she ruled out a ban on junk food advertising, calling instead for a self- regulatory brief of moderation. Trotting out the now ubiquitous party line of “common sense and personal responsibility” (which is fast becoming the mantra of politicians and fast food defenders alike on both sides of the pond), Jowell called on advertisers to “keep your industry and the public healthy. Use every weapon in your arsenal, every creative muscle. Everything in Moderation – that’s the message. Good luck and make it a slogan.”

Good luck and make it a slogan indeed. It is hard to know how much of a handle a company like McDonald’s, which encourages children to eat for charity on World Children’s Day, has on a concept like moderation. Or perhaps she was alluding to the sort of promotional moderation that sees the likes of Cadbury’s link chocolate bar purchases to the provision of sports equipment for schools (Kids! Emulate your sporting heroes by gorging yourself on food that will make you fat and unhappy!).

McDonald’s “dark marketing” strategy of diversifying the brand into other products through the creation of the “McKids” line of clothing, books and toys as a way of circumventing any potential future advertising restrictions seems less and less necessary. Concerned noises from politicians aside, it’s very much a case of business as usual. Ofcom’s assertion that the absence of a food classificatory system makes a ban unworkable runs counter to the findings of a UK Food Standards Agency report (“Does Food Promotion Influence Children?”) published last year which concluded that advertising does indeed impact on children’s preferences, purchase behaviour and food consumption. Moreover, “these effects are apparent not just for different brands but also for different types of food” said Professor Gerard Hastings, the report’s author. Commenting on the FSA’s loss of nerve in calling for voluntary agreements with the food advertising industry to be explored before proposing new legislation, Professor Philip James of the Coronary Prevention Group and IOTF chairman said, “we need even stronger action to deal with marketing to children and not fudged options such as those just suggested by the Food Standards Agency. Politicians need to understand that regulation is required and that it is a popular move. It is what the majority of parents in every country we work with places as one of their top priorities. The issue then is whether governments, local authorities and schools are working for the people or for commercial interests.”

"This issue isn't about any restaurant or any particular food, it's all about personal responsibility and individual decisions,” said a McDonald’s spokesperson in response to the Cheeseburger Bill being given the green light by the House of Representatives. But where’s the personal choice for children like the young readership of National Geographic Kids Magazine which has turned its pages over to Twinkies, M&Ms, Froot Loops and Hostess Cup Cakes? Where’s the choice for kids who read, in the same magazine, that “some McDonald’s restaurants are offering Happy Meals with fruit instead of fries. Fruit will make the meal more healthy, but will it make kids happy?” Where’s the choice for kids who read the May issue which came wrapped in an ad for “Arby’s Adventure Meals” which resembled the actual magazine cover? “Each meal is loaded with learning and trusted by moms” ran the ad copy – meals like chicken fingers and french fries. According to the Publishers Information Bureau, ad pages in National Geographic Kids grew 7.5% in the period January to June (with advertising rates ranging from $31,825 to almost $169,000).

Responding to criticisms leveled by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, National Geographic Kids publisher Rainer Jenss pointed to the magazine’s dependence on advertising revenue in order to meet its educational mission. “If this helps us to fulfill our mission to get information out to young people in a respectful way, and in a way that adheres to advertising and editorial guidelines, we will continue to do that” he said, without saying how Arby’s Adventure Meals key into the mission equation. In the UK, leading ad agency Abbott Mead Vickers-BBDO was recently forced into making an embarrassing public climb-down by the Health Select Committee concerning a private brief made for Walkers Crisps which encouraged children to believe that "Wotsits are for me. I am going to pester mum for them when she next goes shopping."

The fast food giants might be losing the battle thanks to the publicity generated by the Schlossers and Spurlocks of this world, but transatlantic government quiescence is continuing to help them win the war. “You pays your money you takes your choice,” they say. Some choice.