11/25/2004 10:23:16 AM|||paul|||A McDonald's Affair|||Skipping through channels last night (waiting for the season finale of The Panel) I came across an A Current Affair story on McDonald's. The premise of the article centered around a doctor who undertook his own version of Morgan Spurlock's McDonald's challenge to prove that one could still lead a healthy lifestyle while only eating McDonald's.

By the end of the report the tone of the story had taken on a decidedly suspicious bent, forming blatant associations between McDonald's food and good dietary advice, with the doctor's advising doctor suggesting at the end that even he might consider taking 'the McDonald's Diet.' What the fuck??? Pick a job already, and stick to it - don't abuse the post you've chosen!

The pièce de résistance came with an interview with the smug face of McDonald's Australia, Guy Russo. Of course McDonald's has always maintained that our food can be part of a balanced diet he said, an affected look of innocent bemusement on his smirking face.

I cannot conceive of a scenario where this doctor, or indeed the reporter, could be anything less than the worst kind of shill. What doctor in his right mind would take it upon himself to even suggest that people specifically go out of their way to eat junk food (let alone McDonald's) if they want to maintain a balanced diet? And by the end of the story that is what was being suggested. Granted, most intelligent people consider A Current Affairs articles and good reporting of hard facts to be completely orthogonal, but presumably some people use it as a credible news source, so they should maintain at least some façade of accountability. I know there's a whole class of people out there that get to use this story as an excuse for their eating habits, and can sagely shake their heads and tell their concerned friends no, thats all been disproven - McDonald's is no less healthy than any other food. It's a political stunt commonly referred to as The Big Lie where you only need to suggest an argument, no matter how outrageous, and people will cling to it (I gotta be careful with Godwyn here, so I'll say no more.)

Where did this story originate? It's obvious McDonald's is still in damage control mode after Supersize Me, so it would be natural to suspect that McDonald's played a large part in the formulation of this story. I thought I'd look up the name and credentials of the 'doctor' who decided to undertake this experiment, or perhaps find some disclaimer announcing the association the relation between the story and McDonald's Australia, but to my surprise neither the show's nor McDonald Australia's websites have any record that the episode ever aired.

Ray Martin's closing line after the story elicted a chuckle from me. He said something along the lines of '...and thanks to McDonald's for their... the uhh... the part they played in that story.' He cleared his throat, tapped his papers and moved on. |||110135178571692660