Article

Study: QSRs respond to toy ban by moving healthier meals into spotlight

Research following the Santa Clara, Calif., ordinance finds no new or reformulated menu rollouts.

December 11, 2011 by Alicia Kelso — Editor, QSRWeb.com

Santa Clara, Calif.'s year-plus-old ordinance prohibiting the distribution of toys with meals that do not meet minimal nutritional criteria has yielded changes to quick-service restaurants' healthy meal promotions and toy marketing activities.

However, none of the QSRs affected by the new law have actually introduced healthier meal items or reformulated current menu items to meet the nutritional criteria outlined in the ordinance.

This is according to new a new study, "Food Marketing to Children Through Toys," by Stanford University's School of Medicine, published earlier this month in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The study found that affected restaurants showed a 2.8- to 3.4-fold increase in their Children's Menu Assessment scores after the ban went into effect. The CMA is a 29-item standardized tool that scores eight subcategories such as presence and proportion of healthy meals, nutritional guidance, branded marketing, and toy promotions.

Three out of four ordinance-affected restaurants showed improvement in their CMA scores within four months. Notable improvements were in on-site nutritional guidance, promotion of healthy meals, beverage and side item options, and toy marketing/distribution activities.

For example, some of the QSRs studied removed toy marketing posters on doors and below cash registers, at eye-level for children. Another global chain restaurant revised its menu board to promote meals meeting ordinance nutritional criteria and announced that toys were included automatically with only these meals. Others removed toy signage or toys completely.

"I was happy to see that the restaurants were taking steps in positive and meaningful directions," lead author Jennifer Otten, PhD told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The main objective for the researchers – who also included Eric B. Hekler, PhD, Rebecca A. Krukowski, PhD, Matthew P. Buman, PhD, Brian E. Saelens, PhD, Christopher D. Gardner, PhD, and Abby C. King, PhD – was to study a "real-world example of a private-sector response to a public health policy," Otten told the Stanford School of Medicine.

The results suggest that QSRs are able to respond rapidly and in positive and meanginful ways to a policy prohibiting toys/incentives with food that fail to conform to nutrient recommendations, the study wrote.

While overhauls to menu items weren't made in response to the ordinance, the study suggests this could be because of time constraints. Restaurants had just 90 days to comply with the Santa Clara law.

"Overall, these initial observations suggest restaurants can change marketing and advertising quickly when prompted, but changes to food items may require more time and/or a more pervasive ordinance," the study wrote, pointing to San Francisco's recently-implemented law as an example of the latter.

That city's ordinance went into effect Dec. 1. However, a follow up study of a similar nature may be tricky to navigate as McDonald's and Burger King began charging 10 cents for kids' meals toys in a circumvention of the ban.

The bans' effects on consumer habits is yet to be seen. Otten and her colleagues plan to release results from a survey in early 2012 asking 900 QSR customers what they ordered before and after the ban.

Read more about health and nutrition.

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