Earlier this month, The Walt Disney Co. announced the next steps in its Magic of Healthy Living campaign: banning most junk-food advertising on its programs for kids and helping guests recognize healthy food in its theme parks and at retail stores with new labeling. I applaud and appreciate these moves.
Established in 2006, Disney’s nutrition guidelines are aligned to federal standards by promoting fruit and vegetable consumption, limiting calories and reducing saturated fat, sodium and sugar. The new advertising standards will affect Disney XD, Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Saturday morning shows on ABC stations, Radio Disney and online programming. The stations and websites have until 2015 to meet the new guidelines.
As a parent, I believe it is my job — not Disney’s — to help my children eat healthfully and learn about proper nutrition for when they are old enough to make such decisions for themselves. But I’ve seen firsthand how susceptible children are to marketing that occurs during their favorite televisions shows or by their favorite characters, and I welcome this help with open arms.
The influence of television advertising was apparent to me again this week when my elementary-school-age children asked several times if we could eat at Subway this week. When I asked why, they explained that the current kids’ meals toys are from Disney-Pixar’s upcoming movie “Brave.” (Disney made a conscious decision to limit its involvement with fast-food restaurants in 2006 by halting the licensing of its film characters for McDonald’s Happy Meals.)
“The emotional connection kids have to our characters and stories gives us a unique opportunity to continue to inspire and encourage them to lead healthier lives,” said Robert A. Iger, chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Co., in a press release.
Disney already has taken steps toward helping parents fight childhood obesity with changes it made in its California theme parks and at Walt Disney World. Six years ago, kids’ meals were reconfigured so that fruits and vegetables and low-fat milk were automatically included with the meals — unless parents opted out and asked for French fries and soda. The company says that of the more than 12 million kids’ meals served last year in its U.S. theme parks, parents stuck with the healthier options 60 percent of the time.
Now, Disney is turning its theme-park efforts to further reducing sodium in kids’ meals and introducing new well-balanced kids’ breakfast meals.
The Walt Disney Co. also introduced the Mickey Check, a symbol that will label as healthy licensed food in retail stores, on menus in theme parks and on qualified recipes on Disney.com and Family.com. I think this will be helpful to parents as well as send the message to kids that nutritious foods still can be fun and tasty. My children can spot the Mickey Mouse-shaped chicken nuggets, cheese and fruit packs as soon as we enter a grocery store. Now, they’ll learn a little more about why the foods they like are good for their bodies, too.
I am happy to see the healthier options such as fruit and milk. The menu options certainly have come a long way, but I’d love to see something that makes such perfect sense to me, I can’t imagine why it hasn’t been done. Smaller portions of the “adult” offerings!
Most of the restaurants offer the same things: nuggets, burgers, pb&j and that’s great because those are kid staples, but why not offer smaller meals keeping with the theeming of the restaurant as well. This is especially obvious in restaurants serving things other than the standard American foods. Yak & Yeti’s only kids options are burgers and tenders!
This way everyone can decide for themselves to be conscious, or adventurous or just not think about health & enjoy the day!
I don’t have an issue with Disney promoting healthy eating, but do have an issue with forcing it upon us. My children are 7 and 10 and are about to take their 5th trip to Disney world. We encounter vacations in the same way mentioned above, knowing our kids will not eat as healthily at they do at home, and that’s perfectly ok with us. We make sure at home they eat well, but on a vacation, we let go and give liberties we would not usually give. That’s our right as parents and do not want Disney butting in, taking over our parenting duties. We’ve had to argue with cast members about swapping out fruit for french fries and juice boxes for soft drinks on several occasions. We’ve also had issues with the adult menus, where you are offered a bag of chips with the only chips offered being of the baked variety. Oh and I won’t even start about those AWFUL wheat buns that every thing is served on that crumble and fall apart. We don’t need Disney to be our moral compass.
Hey Kristin,
First off, this article is great. I as well applaud Disney for becoming more aware for healthy options for kids at their restaurants. My nephews love the fact that they can get steamed broccoli at Columbia Harbor House. I just have one question…..what was wrong with subway? You can get a healthy meal there, it just depends what you order. I was just curious, subway is a better option than some of the other fast food chains. Once again, great article and I enjoy reading them!!
I agree with your first sentence from the third paragraph. I don’t have any kids but if I was going to go on vacation such as Disney World, I’d treat it as if going on a cruise. You know you’re not going to eat responsibly. Going on vacation that is not a health resort shouldn’t feel like one. I know there’s plenty of junk food at the parks but hopefully Disney won’t go to far and all you can find to snack on is crudites and iced tea.