Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Tomorrow 170 Children's Hospitals Will Sell Millions of Dairy Queen Blizzards

So ridiculous.

Tomorrow is, "DQ Miracle Treat Day", the day where $1 from every Blizzard sold is divvied up via the Children's Miracle Network to the 170 Children's Hospitals it represents (here in Canada it's 100% of the proceeds).

Again, while I'm not knocking Dairy Queen for the event (it makes great business sense), nor am I knocking Blizzards (I'm told they're delicious), what I am knocking are the hospital foundations and administrators who feel that money makes the further normalization and permission of sugar bomb consumption worthwhile. No doubt too events like these help to improve brand loyalty and may well create new customers out of those who, enticed by the charity health-washing, decide to give a Blizzard a whirl.

For those of you keeping score the least damaging Blizzard you can buy (in terms of calories and sugar) is the Mini sized Choco Cherry Love Blizzard. It has 320 calories and 11 teaspoons of sugar. The worst is the large Rolo Blizzard which packs 1,350 calories along with closing in on a cup of sugar (41 teaspoons). The average medium sized Blizzard hits with 800 calories and over a half a cup of sugar.

Seems to me that the "Miracle" here is that junk food has become so normalized (in part due to partnerships like this one) that virtually no one bats even a single eyelash at how obscenely hypocritical these partnerships are.