The Happy Meal is changing. McDonald’s announced on Feb. 15 that for the Happy Meal menu, cheeseburgers will be removed and replaced with a healthier grilled chicken sandwich option. Chocolate milk will be reformulated to contain less sugar (and will be removed from the menu until that reformulation is complete), the size of fries will be reduced, and bottled water will be added to the menu.

Customers can still special-order items such as cheeseburgers, but they will not be on the standard Happy Meal menu.  The goal is to reduce the number of calories in Happy Meals in the United States to 600 or fewer by June 2018 and to meet the same goal worldwide by 2020.

Many parents are upset because they feel that McDonald’s is unnecessarily trying to control what their kids eat. Other customers are angry simply because of how iconic and nostalgic the cheeseburger and chocolate milk are to the Happy Meal. Some adult customers even bought Happy Meals because cheeseburgers were slightly cheaper that way. The opposition feels that McDonald’s is taking a step in the right direction toward a healthier menu and is setting a positive example for other fast food franchises to rework their menus and make things healthier.

McDonald’s has been doing this for years, trying to reconfigure the menu to offer healthier options or perhaps create the illusion of offering healthier options. In 2011, it added apple slices to Happy Meals and reduced the serving size of fries to 1.1 ounces. In 2013, it took soda off of the Happy Meal menu as a default option and put more emphasis on advertising fruits and vegetables for sides. Last November, it swapped out apple juice for a healthier juice option.

If they are taking the cheeseburger out of the Happy Meal to make them more healthy, then why not just make the burger more healthy or take the burger off the menu altogether? It is good that McDonald’s is trying to do this, but if they really are that concerned with health, they would eliminate certain things altogether. It should promote healthier food choices in general, and make products healthier. They are changing the chocolate milk to be less sugary and more nutritious, so why not do that for other things on the menu?

McDonald’s certainly has the right mindset with this and has good intentions, but the effectiveness is questionable. People can easily get around the food options by simply ordering off other menus. After all, the items that it is trying to keep off the menu can simply be special ordered, even if they are not on the normal Happy Meal menu.

When parents take their children to McDonald’s, they are not doing so with the intention of giving their kids a healthy lunch. It is not up to McDonald’s to make kids eat better, it is up to the parents. The parents order the food and can easily just order something else or bigger. Changing the menu around will not make kids healthier. Parents will have to actively choose good things for their kids, or convince their kids to want healthier options.

Photo: Taylor Woods | The Oswegonian