7th January 2025 – (Hong Kong) For half a century, McDonald’s has been dishing out Big Macs, fries and milkshakes to the people of Hong Kong. To mark this dubious milestone, the fast food behemoth has kicked off a year of festivities including a city-wide “treasure hunt” where customers can win prizes by locating 50 Ronald McDonald benches scattered around Hong Kong. But amidst the fanfare, one has to ask – should we really be celebrating McDonald’s ubiquitous presence and all it represents?
Let’s be honest here – no one goes to McDonald’s expecting a nutritious, wholesome meal. The allure of McDonald’s has always been the opposite – greasy burgers, salty fries, and sugary drinks that satisfy our cravings for fat, salt and sugar. It’s a quintessential example of unhealthy indulgence that has been a part of the cultural fabric for generations.
As Ray Kroc, the man who turned McDonald’s into a global juggernaut, once brazenly stated: “We take the hamburger business more seriously than anyone else.” From the very start, McDonald’s made no pretences about pushing an unhealthy product. It was fast food made faster, cheaper and more addictive. And we the customers have embraced this devil’s bargain willingly. We know exactly what we’re getting from McDonald’s – hyper-palatable junk that tastes great but is terrible for our health. That’s the sad truth McDonald’s is built on, and likely why it will never go away despite all the hand-wringing over obesity. Deep down, we want what McDonald’s is selling.
McDonald’s has tried to adapt to changing tastes and concerns over dietary health. The McPlant burger, salads, and other seemingly “healthy” options have been paraded out. But as the company’s US president Joe Erlinger admitted, these always flop because customers simply aren’t interested in getting a salad from McDonald’s. It goes against the very essence of the brand.
When you walk through those golden arches, you’re there for a greasy, salty, sugary hit – a transcendent, if fleeting, moment of junk food bliss. A salad or veggie burger would just be a sad reminder that you’re deluding yourself about eating healthy. It ruins the whole experience.
No, McDonald’s understands that gimmicks like the McPlant are simply for maintaining a veneer of corporate responsibility and relevance. The company knows its core product will always be the Big Mac, McNuggets, and French fries. These are the culinary staples that have kept customers loyal for 50 years in Hong Kong and everywhere else.
McDonald’s doesn’t need to pretend to be something it’s not. People don’t go to Tiffany’s for a tungsten ring or the Apple store for Android accessories. In the same vein, no one is going to McDonald’s for quinoa and kale salads. That’s just not why it exists.
Instead, McDonald’s has doubled down on what it does best – dishing out craveable junk food at a reasonable price and unbeatable convenience. The brand’s incredible, arguably unmatched success lies in tapping into our basest desires for fatty, salty, sugary delights. It’s a multi-billion dollar empire built on the back of our undying appetite for gastronomic indulgence.
Health experts can rail against McDonald’s all they want, but it’s simply giving people what they want in the most efficient way possible. For better or worse, the siren call of the golden arches and all it represents is impossible to resist for millions, if not billions, worldwide.
So as McDonald’s embarks on its 50th anniversary celebration in Hong Kong, we would do well to pause and consider what exactly is being commemorated here. Is it really an occasion for unmitigated festivity and bonhomie?
After all, for every handsomely profitable year that McDonald’s has been slinging Big Macs in the city, there’s been an unquantifiable human toll of weight gain, obesity, heart disease and other diet-related illnesses. McDonald’s may try to deflect all this by nodding to the odd salad or veggie burger on its menu, but make no mistake – its vast profitability comes from pushing the very unhealthy foods that have fueled public health crises around the globe.
Perhaps what we should really be pondering with clear eyes is the undeniable fact that McDonald’s outsized success stems from commercialising and normalising rampant over-indulgence in the worst possible junk foods. It has made diet-demolishing treats cheap, ubiquitous and socially acceptable to crave on a daily basis.
Is that really something to be celebrated over a year of fanfare? Or is it, sadly, symptomatic of deeper societal failings that we’ve allowed a corporate peddler of unhealthy to become such an embedded, even revered part of our culture? These are uncomfortable questions the anniversary celebration necessarily raises. No matter how fun the “treasure hunts” or nostalgic the marketing, we can’t ignore that McDonald’s inexorable rise has come at a huge public cost in preventable disease and misery.
So by all means, let McDonald’s Hong Kong revel in its 50 years of commercial success. However, let’s also be honest about what that empire is really built on – delicious-tasting indulgences that have quietly sickened potentially millions. Maybe that truth is not worth celebrating quite so raucously.
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