I suppose this is becoming a series all by itself.
In an article published recently by the American Journal of Public Health, one of my favourite nutritional researchers and authors, Marion Nestle, examined the responses of Burger King, McDonald's and Wendy's to the past 8 years worth of increasing calls to action on obesity in the form of their portion sizes of soda, French fries and hamburgers from 1998 through 2006.
The expectation might be that given the public and medical uproar with regards to growing rates of obesity, and the clear involvement of fast food and fast food portions as factors in that rise, that perhaps we might have expected to see decreases in fast food portions.
To summarize her findings, McDonald's in fact has reduced some of their portion sizes, though they're still in the neighbourhood of 500% larger than those they had when they opened in 1955.
Wendy's on the other hand, ah Wendy's.....let's start with fountain sodas.
In 1998 Wendy's Smalls were 16oz, Mediums 22oz and Biggie's were 32 oz.
In 2006 Wendy's Smalls were 20oz, Mediums 32oz and Large (Biggie's gone) was 42oz.
Next we'll move onto French fries.
In 1998 Wendy's Smalls were 3.2oz, Mediums were 4.6oz, Biggies were 5.6 oz and Great Biggies were 6.7oz.
In 2006 Wendy's Smalls were 5oz, Mediums were 5.6oz and Large were 6.7oz.
Burgers, probably because the base costs are higher for beef than for soda or fries, haven't changed.
Do you remember an advertising campaign that mentioned that their sizes had increased across the board for fries and drinks?
I sure don't.
Yet another reason to add to the growing list of reasons not to give Wendy's your fast food dollars.
For those not familiar with the list, to summarize:
Wendy's seemingly lies to you, apparently thinks you're stupid and continues to increase portion sizes without telling you using descriptive adjectives that might have you believe that in fact you're eating less ("I'm not having their old Biggie, just a Large").