Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has ignored calls for the Royal Children’s Hospital to dump its contract with McDonalds, saying that the public health experts behind the push should “get over themselves”.
Melbourne University Professor of Public Health Rob Moodie, said that he is fearful that the new hospital – set to open in 2017 – is to include a McDonalds.
Despite the Royal Children’s Hospital’s benefits from the Ronald McDonald charity, researchers have revealed that people mistakenly assume that the fast-food outlet offers healthier options because it’s in a hospital.
“The health halo effect is the notion that if you associate a brand like McDonalds with a healthy brand, like the hospital, people will think it is healthy,” says Prof. Moodie.
“Given the fact hospitals are trying to be seen as centres of wellness, fundamentally, it sends the completely wrong message.”
He acknowledges that the Ronald McDonald House charity provides external support for families and sick children, but that McDonalds was opportunistic in the way it uses its association with high prestige hospitals as a way of promoting its brand.
“Surely there are good alternatives, healthy food providers, who can make good money for themselves and the hospital but don’t reinforce a brand that is highly associated with poor dietary outcomes.”
Prof. Moddie told 3AW radio that hospitals allowing fast-food chains on site is like “a cancer institute supporting the tobacco industry”.
With one in four Australian children now overweight or obese, health experts and commentators says that Australian hospitals should be following a global trend of dumping fast-food retailers because they promote a poor diet and is inconsistent with the values a health institution should be teaching and encompassing.
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews says that McDonalds is “here to stay” in the Children’s Hospital, adding that “I’m also a parent and frankly the notion that it is somehow a bad thing to give a sick child a treat, to give a sibling of a sick child a visit to McDonald’s, that is just nonsense and we’ll have none of it, none of it at all,” he said.
The premier added that “people who would like to tell parents every single thing they ought do and not do” was “nanny statism” that undermined the power of other advice governments give parents.
The head of the Obesity Policy Coalition, Jane Martin, spoke out against Andrews adding that:
“It’s not really about whether children should be having these treats or not, it’s about whether a children’s hospital should be seen to be endorsing the kind of food that McDonald’s basically sells. They basically sell nuggets and fries,”
“Hospitals are dealing with a huge burden of diet-related disease … This is our new smoking.”
Previous research published in the medical journal Paediatrics has shown that people who eat McDonald’s in hospitals believe they are contributing funding towards the hospital and that the food is healthier.
There is good research to support that having a McDonalds at or next to a hospital makes people believe that it’s healthier than it is and that it supports the hospital. However, this is certainly not the case and for the government to ignore this is both dangerous and irresponsible.
Other states and countries are doing the opposite to Victoria when it comes to McDonalds in hospitals.
“A lot of these big hospitals around the world are pulling them out, in the US, the UK,” says Moodie.
But Premier Andrews said that as long as there was a “balanced offering” of food at hospitals, then parents were able to choose what they feed their children.
YOUNG CHRISTIAN WORKERS 