McMarketing To Beat Obesity

An Auckland health board has turned to McDonald's marketing techniques in a bid to reduce childhood obesity.

South Auckland kids might not know it but a former McDonald's marketing guru is being used to persuade them to eat healthy tuck shop combos at school.

Former McDonald's director and marketing whizz, Brian Weaver, has joined forces with Counties Manukau Health Board and the Food Industry Group to work on a diabetes project.
While there'll be no Big Macs filled with hummus or Happy Meals featuring carrot sticks, some of the McDonald's-style selling techniques and lingo will be borrowed for the healthy-eating campaign. Mr Weaver's ideas include selling "combos" in school tuck shops, cashing in on a habit already formed by youngsters buying food at McDonald's.

Pupils will be offered a "combo" of a pizza, low-fat yoghurt and a bottle of water.

Containers of cut-up fruit will also be introduced at tuck shops to encourage children to increase their fruit intake.

Since starting the campaign seven months ago, Mr Weaver has won praise from health workers for drawing on the burger chain's strategies to use in the health board's $10 million Let's Beat Diabetes programme.

South Auckland's population has some of New Zealand's worst health statistics, with 25,000 people affected by diabetes. Targeting children's eating habits is part of a strategy to stop another generation becoming overweight and susceptible to diabetes.

Public health expert Paul Stephenson said Mr Weaver's appointment came after the health board decided it had to work more closely with the food industry.

"Brian (Weaver) has come at things from an angle public health people have not thought about." Persuading children to eat healthy food was a tough battle.

"If you try to sell healthy food, they just walk across the road to the dairy," Mr Stephenson said. "If kids are used to having a pie and chips, you can't entirely change their habits. Some of these kids have a pie and Coke for breakfast."

The Let's Beat Diabetes programme was also responsible for putting sugar-free Sprite Zero into 21 McDonald's restaurants, thought to be a world first.

Specialists at the University of Auckland would use the programme to monitor sugar intake and Mr Weaver could then use the data to lobby the food industry to promote lower-energy soft drinks.

"We're trying to get the industry to compete on the healthiness of their products," said Mr Stephenson. "That's where Subway is winning."

Sue Kedgley, Green MP and health spokeswoman, had no problem with "someone using their marketing skills to improve rather than undermine children's health" - but "no sugar" soft drinks gave people false assurances. They were often worse for teeth and contained harmful additives.