One small step for McDonalds may be a huge step toward ending obesity.
Starting in September, McDonald’s restaurants across the United Kingdom will be displaying calorie counts on their menu boards for all to see before deciding to buy that 1100 calorie Big Mac meal.
This changes comes after the chain signed up to the Government’s “responsibility deal” on public health.
Jill McDonald, chief executive of McDonald’s UK & Northern Europe, said:
“Displaying calories on menus supports the principles we’ve always believed are important: giving our customers clear information to make informed choices; providing a balanced menu by offering choice and reformulating our recipes; and responding to what our customers want. We’ve tested menu board labelling in 125 restaurants and the results show it’s a move that some of our customers would value. As a result we’ll be displaying them across our 1,200 restaurants from September.”
Let’s hope they value it so much that they pick the side salad instead of the large fry!
McDonalds follows in the footsteps of Pizza Hut and KFC as companies back the crackdown on obesity.
Although this is exclusive to the locations in the UK (for now), let’s cross our fingers that the U.S. is next to adopt these simple regulations that will help a customer make a more informed decision.