20th April 2004
Distasteful or not, the sudden death of McDonald's Chief Executive Jim Cantalupo from an apparent heart attack on Monday may turn up the spotlight on criticism of the restaurant's food as fatty and unhealthy.
McDonald's Inc. and
other fast food chains have come under attack from health and
nutrition experts who say its hamburgers and french fries are a major
cause of obesity.There is no suggestion Cantalupo died because he ate too much of his own company's food and marketing experts do not expect immediate criticism of McDonald's. But they said once the dust settles, critics could use his death against the world's largest restaurant chain.
"I think that, after a while, they (McDonald's detractors) will try to liken this to a cigarette company executive dying of lung cancer," said Steven Addis, chief executive of Addis Group, a brand strategy and design company. Addis said such criticism of McDonald's would be unfortunate.
There is a precedent for this with recent attacks on the health benefits of the Atkins diet following the release of a medical report showing the diet's creator, Dr. Robert Atkins, had a heart condition when he died last year.
"It would be horribly bad taste to suggest that because this guy ran McDonald's that he had a heart attack as a result of it," said Bob Dilenschneider, chief executive of The Dilenschneider Group, a public relations firm.
But he said that, to neuter criticism, McDonald's now must continue Cantalupo's vision to provide healthy food choices such as salads and fresh fruit at its restaurants, as well as traditional fare.
People who worked with Cantalupo said he appeared to be in reasonably good health. A McDonald's spokeswoman would not comment on his prior health record.
"He never used the elevators, always walked up the stairs. He was in good shape, not fat," said Herman Boykin, a security guard at McDonald's headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois.
At McDonald's headquarters in the Chicago suburbs, executives have few choices for eating lunch out, unless they seek to venture by car off the company's sprawling campus.
On a given day, many senior staff can be found in the company's in-house cafeteria, a working McDonald's situated in the headquarters building.
Though it does have some offerings that would not be found beneath the chain's landmark Golden Arches outside, it does mainly provide the traditional Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, soft drinks and fries. The restaurant is also often used to test new menu items before they are incorporated into menus in the company's 13,000 U.S. hamburger outlets.
On a trip with reporters to visit McDonald's restaurants in Colorado, Texas and California in June 2000, the company's executives ate french fries, sundaes, hamburgers or triple-thick milkshakes at every stop, saying it would be impolite to visit a franchise and not eat the food.
One executive on that trip spent his evenings jogging in an effort to stave off the pounds that come from eating the company's fast-food for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
A young filmmaker recently won an award at the Sundance Film Festival for "Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions", a documentary about his month of eating nothing but McDonald's menu items. Morgan Spurlock gained 25 pounds and his cholesterol level increased.
There have even been lawsuits against the world's largest restaurant chain, charging that its food caused consumers to become obese. Courts have so far dismissed most of the suits.
"I think it is not only McDonald's but the fast food industry in general that has contributed to the expanding waist lines in this country and now abroad," said Samantha Heller, Senior Clinical Nutritionist at New York University Medical Center.
Cantalupo's death follows the untimely passing of others in the industry. In January 2002, Dave Thomas, 69, founder of No.3 U.S. hamburger chain Wendy's International Inc. died of complications from liver cancer. In December 1999, Wendy's CEO, Gordon Teter, died of a heart attack at age 56.
Heller said new CEO Charlie Bell should continue to broaden McDonald's menu to include affordable and healthy choices.
"We need to eat healthy foods that do not contribute to heart disease, like cheeseburgers do," Heller said