History of McDonalds in New Zealand

History of McDonalds in New Zealand

It is a well known fact that the health and well being of New Zealander’s has decreased over the years as nowadays diseases such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease are more common than ever, even amongst the younger generation.

Is it true that McDonalds is contributing towards obesity in young people in New Zealand? Multinational food companies have hugely altered how society eats today. Due to the overwhelming numbers of large multinational food companies in today’s world, this has also changed the eating patterns of New Zealanders overtime.

Large companies like McDonalds have completely adapted our attitudes and values towards eating and our choices of food. They have taken these well structured attitudes and values and changed them to fulfill their needs and gain themselves large amounts of income. These adaptions include convenience of fast food, how cheap and accessible their food is to get and also the portion size of meals.

Other strategies McDonalds use to gain customers is targeting different audiences, with this largely being aimed at children. They often also rebrand their company, by claiming to be more health conscious with a greater variety of salads and other healthy meal options to appeal to a wider range of people. Statistics from over the years confirm that an obesity epidemic has occurred in New Zealand over the past few decades.

Statistics from the 1970s (from the ministry of health website) show that 42 percent of males in New Zealand and 26 percent of adult females were already overweight and 9 percent of males and 11 percent of females were already obese, this meaning a large 51 percent of males and 37 percent of females were already either overweight or obese by the 1970s.

Moving forward overtime we can see that male obesity has increased from 17 percent in 1997 to 27.7 percent in 2008. There has also been an increase in obesity in females from 20.6 percent in 1997 to 27.8 percent in 2008. As these number…