Racism and Sodapop

You might ask what the two of them have in common.

Andrew Martin of the NYT will tell you

McDonald’s stock price has quadrupled in the last four years, and the company has reported positive same-store sales, an important industry measure, every month since April 2003.

Given those results, a new McDonald’s menu item is a bit of a stunner. Remember Supersize sodas? They’re back, except this time the chain is trying a new name. Meet the “Hugo,” a 42-ounce drink now available for as little as 89 cents in some markets. A Hugo soda contains about 410 calories.

McDonald’s might as well have called it the Tubbo.

Making matters worse, Hugo ads are available in several languages, making sure that minorities — who are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic — are aware of the budget beverage.

I can’t think of a minority that speaks a different language who are fatter than white people per capita. If Martin is talking about Latinos, he’ll need to provide at least some evidence to convince me.

But even a nutritioninst can tell us why McDonalds is gving the supersized another try, even if it never occured to Andrew Martin.

Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University, says she feels some sympathy for fast-food restaurants. Most are public companies that must continually find ways to grow, and she says that offering bigger sizes is an easy way to do it.

“The companies are stuck,” she said. “They must grow. Therefore they are looking for products that are going to sell. And guess what? The healthy ones don’t.”

Ayup. You can promote the hell out of chicken wraps and rabbit food salads every hour of every day for the next five years (which McDonalds has been doing) and people will still go to Che-McD’s for a Big Mac or the Double Quarter Pounder w/Cheese.

OK, now I’m hungry.