The most terrible thing they do is prime little children with their 'happy meals', cartoons,play areas, parties clowns and plastic toys. This leads to them associating Mc Donalds with childhood memories. Most of it's very psychological.

People still have self control though. What are we gonna do? Make laws to band the advertisements? The last thing we need is more laws. If you are gonna do anything, educate people about healthy eating. I think that would do more, at least for some. It doesn't seem to do much good with smoking (at least in the US). People do what people are going to do, reguarless of advertising. Don't mean to sound like I'm an advocate for McDonalds, or fast food for that matter. I guess I'm just an advocate for personal responsibility and less government, and I see alot of people blaming everyone else for their own stupid mistakes.

^ Maybe sometimes we have to protect stupid people.

alright, let me try to disect this and give my thoughts on it.

1. i do believe that people can get addicted to food, hense - Overeaters Anonymous and other organizations helping food addictions.

2. If someone bought a car, and nobody bothered to tell them that a rear end accident would pierce the gas tank causing the car to explode, then I wouldnt blame the driver, or the car, but the manufacturer that failed to tell the public of the dangers of this vehicle. Just like mcdonalds wont ever tell you if you eat here you will die sooner. Instead they watch it happen everyday and wash their hands from all responsibilities.

i find it hard to believe that there are cows and chickens out there who pump themselves up with hormones to get as big as they can because they like it. There are more than one food distributor, mcdonalds could change the quality of their food making it healthier than what it is now by going with a better company. It wont ever happend though if the public continues to let them choose profit over health concerns.

Of course you cant make laws on advertising, Im just saying that Mcdonalds wouldnt be as successful without all the adverts and, like ladyluck said, the free gimmicks and such. And if Mcdonalds wasnt successful, Im fairly sure we'd see some of the figures drop.

As for " People do what people are going to do, reguarless of advertising", I wouldnt say that at all... Advertising can influence people quite heavily, we see so many adverts each day, sometimes without even realising. But, the images get stuck in our memory, it all affects you..

Im all for educating people about healthy eating, but the sad truth is there is no way the food and drug administration can compete with Mcdonalds $2 billion in advertising campaigns.

Just go and watch fast food nation already!!!!!!!

mmmm...burger.....i guess a double cheeseburger will do, but it's not even near to being the best burger, the best i've eaten is in my home town, with fresh bagols ( no grease on them ) and it's 3 times bigger then a double cheese......mmmmmm.......

Looks Tastey!
http://www.funnies.com/dfunny/burger1.jpg

So...did you just post in this thread to tell us you have a cr@p diet

I was refering more to advertising of anti-smoking campaigns (and by association, anti-obesity). I think most people will smoke and eat what they want, reguardless. You have to make them want to be healthy more than want to eat that Big Mac.

I think you guys are proving a good point, but I believe the people, not McDonalds, are to blame. People know its harmful to smoke, but they do it anyway. Most people know its harmful to eat at McDonalds, but they do it anyway. McDonalds (and other fast food chains) are just providing a product where there is demand. I think their advertising and shameless-self promotion is terriable, but I feel that way about alot of advertising and "brand-awareness" that occurs everyday. We live in a society where we are bombarded by advertising almost anywhere you look. And you are right, it does play a role in our minds as to what we decide to do, but no amount of advertising is going to make something taste better or be more healthy that what it really is. At the end of the day, people do what they want. Maybe we need more education, I don't know. I think what it all boils down to is greed. They are all in it for the money, reguardless of who or what it hurts. At least Johnny is making $5.50 at the pickup-window...

mmm, yeah...i just wanted to break the flow of the conversation....to break your concetration....to confuse you.....throw you off track.....in my black cadilac.....

^whoo for the croation rap!

True, but Im not saying its all Mcdonalds' fault the obesity figures are so high. Im saying that its a mixture of everything. Yes, Mcdonalds could make an effort to make things healthier. Yes, their advertising does affect the public. And of course, its more the people's fault for not dieting.

But you can't expect these people to diet when things are they way they are. There's too much influence from the ads, and from all the other thousands and thousands of people that go to Mcdonalds. Obesity seems to spread by word of mouth, one person tells another about this great fast-food place they went to, they tell someone else, and so on..

hehe....but technicaly it's a croatian rappin not croatian rap, it shoud be in croatian for that....

:P Pffft technically

i used to eat mcdonalds nearly every day. double cheeseburgers or a mcchicken with extra pickles and extra mayonnaise. dont get me wrong, i still like to eat that garbage occasionally but when i stopped eating it so often, i ended up losing like 25 pounds. they inject some kind of chemicals into the meat to make you physically want more. im only 4'11 and before i stopped with my mcdonalds binge, id be eating like 3 double cheeseburgers and fries. i wouldnt even be hungry but id keep eating.yuck! without all that crap, i weigh a healthy 118lbs. mcdonalds is very destructive but ohhhhhhhhhhh so tasty.

They do actually have addicitive yet legal chemicals in the food.

^that kinda creeps me out but sometimes after i've eaten there, i can't eat there for months, i have no idea why, that drug must have some wierd affect on me.
i think mcdonalds is okay in general but people shouldn't be eating there everyday. i think it requies some sort of routine to begin for someone to start going there everyday, some parents are just too tired to cook or don't feel like it, but our family never goes there, ever but i still get a healthy dosage of junk-food a day...

this post cracks me up!!!! right after all fenixpunk had just said....lol

after reading this thread I feel like i'm gonna puke
I hate mcdonalds
I hate their food
I would never want to give them my money

i heard this thing on supersize me:

if a parent sits with their child at every meal three times a day and gives them good messages about food then they will get 1 000 times a year to say this. on average kids will see 30-40 fast food advertisments per day equating to over 10 000 ads per year.... you may say that there is self control and people should be able to resist but if its presented in such large volumes there is almost a brainwashing effect... this is not to even mention the chemicals that they put in to addict you....

this thread is awesome

torching mcdonalds is sounding more and more like a good idea...

mmmmmmmm............99 cent double cheeseburgers.

the cheeseburgers here are the most expensive in the world,i think it's like 6 dollars or something in comaprison.....

where are you?

^She's in Antarctica, shipping costs.

i wanna live in austrailia theres like a giant underground city there... that'd be frickin awsome!!!

This is slightly off topic but McDonalds is the most repulsive food ever. It makes me gag. And the smell. Blach.

^you're actually on topic



sweden....nothing you've heard about it is true!...well some of it....

wait.... i thought mcdonalds was healthy

You may as well shoot grease straight into your vein. Save some time.

I would, but needles kinda' freak me out.

its not really giant.. its just a few people who live underground cos its too ****ing hot to live above the ground..... its like 50 degrees

was this sarcasm?

btw, i hate this whole advertising thingy and i hate fast food but even though there are so many people aware of the gravity of the situation, things won't change too soon...

what Fenix posted about the first Ronald Mcdonald gave me the creeps.... i hate Ronald, i think he's damn scary, how can kids love him? Oh, i know, he comes with "tasty" food...

well anyway, it's good to know some Americans hate Mcdonald's too

have you ever thought about the fact Internet influences our lives too? i mean, just think of the hours we sit in front of the PC...

i was watching the buffy re-runs and there was this one episode where they made the food out of people, freaks me out about all fast-food joints, i still go there though, i'm not easily intimidated.....

^ ohh yeah and that teenager kills people and puts them in the food.

yeah, and a movie, the hitchhiker i think, where's he's in this diner and he doesn't notice that he's gonna eat a finger that got into his chips somehow....

"IT'S PEOPLE!!! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!!!" AHAHAHA....CLASSIC!!

Soylent green! woo!.... Well I just took a while out of my day to read this entire thread. And i've found that there's three types of people in this thread:

1.
The millitant anti-Mcdonalds, posts alot of obesity facts and talks about chemicals in the meats and conspiacy theories and such.....

2
The Reasonable person, they know Mcdonalds is bad, but they're not leading some sort of crusade, it's peoples fault, you can't go blaming a corporation everytime something is wrong


3.
The person who likes food and is just silly about it, Great comic releif for all the hard facts being thrown around...

But you notice there's no millitant Pro Mcdonalds so thus there's no giant arguments, and there, thats my analisis, and maybe i'll post an opinion later.

4. The PhishFood
Likes to analyse people, site reccomendation psychology lesson