美电视广告反快餐 直指麦当劳

近日，由美国责任医疗医师委员会出资制作的一条反快餐广告用令人反胃的画面向人们宣传快餐的危害，因其广告语和画面直指快餐巨头麦当劳而遭到对方的抗议。广告画面中，一名体型肥胖的中年男子躺在太平间，有个女人俯在他身上哭泣，而男子手里还拿着吃了一半的麦当劳汉堡。广告中出现了麦当劳的金色拱门标志，而字幕则是将麦当劳目前的全球推广语“我喜欢它”篡改为“我曾喜欢它”，还用画外音提示了快餐带来的危害”高胆固醇、高血压、心脏病“。麦当劳方面以及美国国家餐馆协会均对此提出异议，全国餐馆协会称这条广告“不负责任”，是用对营养知识“有限”的了解把公众从快餐店吓跑；麦当劳发言人则表示“这条广告让人难以容忍，会误导消费者”。

Unhappy meals: American doctors' TV ad features a corpse holding a hamburger and the line 'I was lovin' it'.

It is an image to sap the flabbiest of appetites. An overweight, middle-aged man lies dead on a mortuary trolley, with a woman weeping over his body. The corpse's cold hand still clutches a half-eaten McDonald's hamburger.

A hard-hitting US television commercial bankrolled by a Washington-based medical group has infuriated McDonald's by taking an unusually direct shot at the world's biggest fast-food chain this week, using a scene filmed in a mortuary followed by a shot of the brand's golden arches logo and a strapline declaring: "I was lovin' it."

The line is a provocative twist on McDonald's long-standing advertising slogan, "I'm lovin' it" and a voiceover intones: "High cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart attacks. Tonight, make it vegetarian."

The commercial, bankrolled by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), goes further than most non-profit advertising and has drawn an angry reaction from both the Chicago-based hamburger multinational and the broader restaurant industry.

The National Restaurant Association criticised it as "irresponsible" and said it was an attempt to scare the public with a "limited" view of nutrition. A McDonald's spokesman said: "This commercial is outrageous, misleading and unfair to all consumers. McDonald's trusts our customers to put such outlandish propaganda in perspective, and to make food and lifestyle choices that are right for them."

The commercial, to be aired initially in the Washington area but potentially in further US cities, comes amid an increasingly lively debate in the US about healthy eating. The first lady, Michelle Obama, has made nutrition a signature issue and is leading a campaign to encourage physical fitness and improved diets – particularly among American children, a third of whom are overweight.

The recession has hardly helped the healthy eating cause. McDonald's has enjoyed a relatively prosperous financial crisis as diners opt for its affordable offerings in place of more expensive high-street restaurants. Its global profits for the six months to June were up 12% to $2.3bn, powered by sales rises both in the United States and Britain.

The PCRM's director of nutrition education, Susan Levin, made no apologies for singling out the golden arches: "McDonald's is one of the biggest fast-food chains in the world. Its name and its golden arches are instantly recognisable. We feel we're making a point about all fast food when we talk about McDonald's."