The Public Health Association thinks it’s being misrepresented over its opposition to Ronald McDonald Houses near hospitals:
“The Public Health Association strongly supports facilities for families of children in hospital with serious conditions receiving publicly funded health care. Our criticism is of the undesirable marketing of the fast food industry arising from the naming rights held by the McDonald’s brand”, says Warren Lindberg, Chief Executive of the Public Health Association.
“Funds to maintain the services provided to families come from community fundraising efforts and Ministry of Health subsidies as well as from the fast food industry. Yet by holding the naming rights, there is a powerful perception that the service is dependent on the generosity of McDonald’s. People are unaware of the funding sources and of the power of branding,” Lindberg says.
“It is time powerful figures in the food industry are willing to join us in changing the environments that promote ‘junk food’. If McDonald’s Restaurants (New Zealand) Limited and its corporate partners have any sense of social responsibility, they will continue to contribute to the delivery of such a valuable health service and give up the naming rights.”
Our sons had several long and repeated stays in Dunedin hospital when they were babies.
Because they were so young I was able to stay in the parents’ room and we had friends in the city who had space for my farmer and our daughter.
More recently I had to spend time in Christchurch supporting someone in hospital there. As I paid for accommodation and food I was very grateful I could do so knowing it didn’t mean I couldn’t afford groceries or other necessities as well.
Parents of older children aren’t usually able to stay in the hospital; not everyone has family or friends who can accommodate them, and many don’t have money to spare for board and keep.
Ronald McDonald Houses offer not just accommodation and meals. They provide pastoral care and emotional support to families dealing with the challenges of seriously ill or injured children.
The meals provided are nutritious and the irony is that without them many of the families would probably be living on fast food because it’s fast and relatively cheap.
McDonalds will pay a lot of money for the naming rights for the houses. It will do so for a variety of reasons, one of which will be an association between its philanthropy and its business but does that association lead people to eat more of its products and to become obese?
I don’t know if that association leads people to eat more of its products than they would have otherwise.
But the causes of obesity are complex and eating fast food occasionally isn’t one of them.
In more irony the PHA is generating support for McDonalds through its campaign.
If it wants to get rid of the branding it would be better putting its effort into finding another very generous sponsor to name the houses than acting like the food police bullying a business whose philanthropy has helped so many people.
Homepaddock 