Alliance for a Healthier Generation and McDonald's Announce Groundbreaking CGI Commitment to Promote Balanced Food and Beverage Choices

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Sep 26, 2013) -  McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) is partnering with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, founded by the Clinton Foundation and American Heart Association, to increase customers' access to fruit and vegetables and help families and children to make informed choices in keeping with balanced lifestyles. President Bill Clinton, founder of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, Don Thompson, President and CEO of McDonald's, and Dr. Howell Wechsler, CEO of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, announced the groundbreaking Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Commitment today at the 2013 CGI Annual Meeting in New York City. 

McDonald's worked with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation to develop a comprehensive plan for 20 of the restaurant chain's largest markets.*

McDonald's specifically commits to:

• Provide customers a choice of a side salad, fruit or vegetable as a substitute for French fries in value meals. (Salad, fruit or vegetable option will vary per participating market.)

The commitment also includes the following related to the promotion and advertising of Happy Meals:

• Promote and market only water, milk, and juice as the beverage in Happy Meals on menu boards and in-store and external advertising
• Utilize Happy Meal and other packaging innovations and designs to generate excitement for fruit, vegetable, low/reduced-fat dairy, or water options for kids
• Dedicate Happy Meal box or bag panels to communicate a fun nutrition or children's well-being message
• Ensure 100 percent of all advertising directed to children to include a fun nutrition or children's well-being message

"We've seen voluntary agreements with industry have profound impact -- including our work with the beverage industry to limit the amount of calories shipped to schools. Those agreements resulted in a 90 percent reduction in total beverage calories shipped to schools between 2004 and 2010," said President Clinton. "If we want to curb the catastrophic economic and health implications of obesity across the world we need more companies to follow McDonald's lead and to step up to the plate and make meaningful changes. I applaud them for doing it."