Who's to blame for the U.S. obesity epidemic?

Stone Phillips: When somebody says eating at McDonald's made me fat, what do you say?

Don Thompson, Chief operating officer, McDonald's USA: I say, “I eat at McDonald's quite often, and I don’t consider myself to be the same thing.” However, having said that, you know, I couldn’t speak to why a person would say that. As McDonald's, we’re not the cause of obesity.

Don Thompson is the chief operating officer of McDonald’s USA. He helps decide what 26 million U.S. customers eat every day.

We met for a rare interview to discuss obesity, responsibility, and that McDonald's-made-me-fat lawsuit.

Phillips: This lawsuit was thrown out twice. It’s now been reinstated. Were you surprised?

Don Thompson: Very much surprised. But we’re very hopeful it’ll be thrown out again.

In 2002 two obese girls sued the fast food giant because they said they couldn’t put those burgers down.

Thompson: The first time I heard the information about the lawsuit, honestly, I thought it was hoax.  I really did.  And as it move forward and, and we heard more about it, I just got to a point where I really felt like there was, there was someone was deferring their responsibility and abdicating the responsibility personally.

Phillips: But do companies like McDonald's bear some responsibility at a time when—obesity is a major problem in this country?

Thompson: What level of responsibility we do have is to provide menu choice. It is not up to us to define what is a part of a person’s diet. However, we wanna make sure that the choice is there.

So McDonald’s is now offering more chicken entrees, salads as a meal, water in place of soda, and these fruit plates instead of apple pie. Supersizing is gone, as is the old formula for Chicken McNuggets: leaner all-white meat replacing what a judge once called: “a McFrankenstein creation.”

Phillips: You changed your Chicken McNuggets.

Thompson: Yes, we did. Children love the Chicken McNuggets.  We also know that moms are very concerned about and want their children to have the absolute healthiest thing that they can possibly have.  And so one of the things we wanted to do was to show moms we hear the concerns.  We’re listening and learning.  And we made a switch in our nuggets to all white meat.

Phillips: Was any of that change related to the lawsuit?

Thompson: No—none of the changes we made with our Chicken Nuggets was related to a lawsuit.

McDonald's says it’s constantly trying out new products, new options, and new initiatives.

Cathy Kapica, McDonald's head nutritionist: We’re not just about burgers and fries anymore. We’re not your mother’s McDonald's.

Cathy Kapica was McDonald's head nutritionist. We met at a suburban Chicago McDonald's.

Phillips: Are burgers and fries smart eating?

Kapica: Burgers and fries can be part of a healthy eating style.

Phillips: Can I eat it every day?

Kapica: Depending upon, if you’re active enough. You can eat at McDonald’s every day. In fact, many of us who work at our corporate headquarters—our company cafeteria is a McDonald’s. And many of us eat there every day. 

Phillips: But, are you eating hamburgers every day?

Kapica: Well, the thing is, is—dietary guidelines suggest, variety, moderation, and balance.

Phillips: So you’re saying you can come every day. Just mix it up.

Kapica: Right.

During her years at McDonald's, Kapica helped add several nutritional choices to the McDonald's menu board. None perhaps more successful than these small packages.

Phillips: Apple dippers.

Kapica: You will love them.

Phillips: This is very good—this is moist and delicious.

Kapica: The apples are actually great.

Phillips: Well, tastes good. Tastes good.

Apple dippers replacing fries in kids’ happy meals have made McDonald's the world’s largest provider of apples to children. But there’s a catch.

Phillips: All right, let’s have the caramel dipping sauce here. The ingredients are corn syrup, sweetened condensed whole milk, high fructose corn syrup—a lot of sugar in this. How healthy is this?

Kapica: It provides energy. Not a lot of other nutrients. But once again, if that’s gonna help your child eat more apples, and it’s fun. It’s a treat. 

Phillips: Better than French fries.

Kapica: You know, if you’re looking to cut down on calories for your child this is a better choice because it is lower in calories. If you’re looking to try and get your child to eat more fruit, this will help him do it.

Phillips: Are you testing other fruit and veggie products?

Kapica: Yes. We’ve tested dozens of vegetables with children. They liked none of them. But we’re still working. We’re very committed. But I think one of our bigger barriers is parental perception of vegetables at McDonald’s. Moms have told us, “I’m not gonna come to McDonald’s for vegetables.”

The overweight parents and kids we talked to echoed that.

Phillips: Some of these fast food restaurants say that they are now offering healthier items on the menu. Are you buying those items?

Panelist: You’re going there for the fries, what they’re known for, the fries. So, that’s what you’re going for.

Katie, panelist: If I went to McDonald’s and I had to choose between a hamburger and a salad, I would pick the hamburger.

Lauren: That’s what you know. That’s what you’ve grown up doing.

Katie: Yeah, that’s what I know. That’s what I eat.

Phillips: Your critics say adding healthier choices is part of it. But you ought to either improve or replace the more fattening items on the menu.

Thompson: I don’t think that I would wanna tell someone who comes into McDonald's for a Big Mac, “No you can’t have a Big Mac, because we took it off, because of our critics.”

Phillips: But what if you customers are making terrible choices? What if they’re choosing to come in and eat burgers and fries way too often?

Thompson: You know as McDonald's, our role and intent is not to say, “You can or cannot have this.” But what we have taken a leadership role in is to provide nutritional information and trying to get that awareness level up, about balanced and active lifestyles.

In its marketing, McDonald's does stress balance and physical activity. The company’s most famous icon traded his clown-shoes for running shoes.

Critics say if McDonald’s really wanted to help people stay fit—the company would alert customers to the potential dangers of some of its more fattening items.

Phillips: One of your staunch critics, Law Professor Banzhaf, says that there should be warning signs on your doors that fattening foods can lead to heart disease and diabetes.  What do you think?

Thompson: Well I wonder where we stop? At what point do you put labels on grocery stores, do you hang those labels over the meat sections, do you hang the labels down cereal aisles?

Perhaps a better idea, say nutritionists, is to require a calorie count on the menu board, so customers can see how fattening an item is,  at the moment they decide what to buy.

Over the years, McDonald's has put nutritional information in various places, from the web to back of tray-liners. This year, the food giant decided to push the envelope or the wrapper, and display the calorie count on your order’s packaging. But it’s still after the purchase, not at the point-of-sale.

Neil Martin: A lotta good it does after you’ve already purchased your meal to see what’s actually in there.

Phillips: That’s not when you need the information?

Martin: Right.

Phillips: I mean, you need that information when you’re making your selections. Right?

This is a touchy topic in the industry. When the restaurant chain “Ruby Tuesday” put a calorie count on its menu, sales dropped. The calorie count was largely abandoned. 

But the people who invented the Big Mac, perfected the drive-thru, and introduced supersizing say they are committed to change.

Phillips: You know years ago, Ray Kroc, your founder, was asked what products McDonald’s would be selling in the year 2000. He said he didn’t know, just that you’d be selling more of them than anybody else.

Thompson: I don’t think Ray had in his wildest dreams that today we’d be selling more than 300 million salads a year. You know I don’t think he would have thought we’d be selling apples—you know 54 million pounds of apples in the US alone.

Phillips: Can good nutrition and good business go hand in hand in the fast food world?

Thompson: I absolutely believe they can.

And while McDonald's wants to sell all the burgers and fries he can, the COO’s advice to us:

Thompson: I do believe in moderation.

Phillips: Too much of anything is a problem.

Thompson: Too much of anything can be a problem.

Phillips: Even McDonald's French fries?

Thompson: Oh. I love McDonald's French fries, so you know what, I’ll walk a little further—I’ll exercise a little harder, and I’ll run around with my kids a little more.

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