The McDonald’s Conundrum: Do You Do Fast Food?

I'm (not) lovin' it.

I'm (not) lovin' it.

It should probably come as no surprise that I’m not a fast-food fan. I used to love it, as a child, and even into my twenties, but no more. The few times I’ve had it, post age 30 or so, it didn’t sit right, in more ways than one. So, me and McDonald’s (or BK or Wendy’s…)? Not so much. Especially after I read author Erik Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, and saw Morgan Spurlock’s brilliant and nausea-inducing documentary Super Size Me, which details (horrifyingly) his 30-day experiment of eating nothing but fast food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

My problem with fast food is that it’s changed from being an occasional treat, a fun but unhealthy island in a sea of good eating, to a commonplace part of many American children’s weekly, or even daily, diet. I sort of knew this, just by noting the sheer number of Happy Meal toys that turn up in the preschool treasure box and in friends’ and relatives’ toyboxes, and the sheer number of cars clogging the parking lot and snaking away from the drive-throughs of every fast food joint I pass. But I wanted a little more empirical evidence.

How about this, from a 2004 study in the journal Pediatrics: On a typical day, 30.3% of 4 – 19-year-olds in a survey had fast food at least once. What?! That’s just wrong. The researchers also found that all those high-fat, high-salt, low-nutrition meals were adding pounds a year to our kids’ bodies. Not only that, but the average fast-food meal has gotten bigger and bigger and less and less healthy (the addition of salads and side orders of apple slices to the menu notwithstanding) than they were when I was a child.

Back then, my experience with McDonald’s was as exotic as a weekend in Paris might be to my present-day life. We’d only go there if my parents were going out for an evening (which happened at least once a month), and my mom had nothing in the house to feed us kids (highly unlikely). But when we did get it? Boy did I enjoy my cheeseburger, fries, and milkshake dinner! That and a fun babysitter, and I was set for a rockin’ Saturday night.

All this is my longish-winded way of saying that I don’t take my boys out for fast food all that often. Daniel is 6 and James is 4, and they’ve had McDonald’s precisely three times in their lives: once on a winter-day playdate in a mall food court (oh, they places we’ll go when we can’t play outside!); once with my parents when my mom, who does not eat fast food but who does love a bargain, was babysitting and had a coupon for something like a zillion McNuggets for $3); and once a couple of weeks ago, with me. As a Treat.

Which it was not. Not really.

On this particular day, the boys both had soccer games, with an hour to kill in between. Because I try to space out treats to give them more impact (see my post on the power of delayed gratification, I figured a trip to a fast-food joint, Chicken McNuggets and a Happy Meal would pack a punch (and the happy-kid result would outweigh the lack of nutrition; after all, it’s just one meal in between a good breakfast and a healthy dinner).

So off we went! First funny thing that happened: We got in the car at the soccer field, I told the boys we’d go to McDonald’s for lunch before the next game … and I had no idea where the closest McD’s even was. I had a vague idea, so I sort of drove on a major road for a while until, voila, the Golden Arches loomed. Second funny thing that happened: I realized that my older son, Daniel, actually had no idea that McDonald’s serves — indeed, is most known for — hamburgers! He’s only ever had their McNuggets and fries. I found that not just amusing, but gratifying.

I ordered two McNugget Happy Meals, and a salad for myself. And down we sat. I guess it’s nice that McDonald’s tries to keep its locations clean, but every time I’ve been in a McD’s restaurant (the last time before this was at a rest-stop during a road trip, so we could pee and get some coffee), someone’s mopping the floor. There’s something disspiriting about munching on a saddish-looking salad while someone’s swishing a mop around your feet, you know?

The boys did okay, though James only nibbled two of his six nuggets (he ate the fries and drank his Mott’s apple-juice box, though). For the boys, the peripherals of the meal — getting ketchup out of little packets rather than a bottle; eating out of a partitioned cardboard box; getting a “prize,” in this case a music CD that’s on endless loop in the car now — were more enticing than the food itself. I heard not one “Wow, this is so good!”

I’m sort of surprised by the lesson I drew from the experience. I guess I figured I’d get a “Gee, Mom, thanks for the treat!” reaction. Truth to be told, the boys seemed as disspirited as I had. They’d have been happier with a couple slices at the pizza place, or lunch at home with the promise of an Italian ice after the game.

How often do you and your kids have fast food? And how do you feel about it?

[photo: Everystockphoto.com]