Mike Hosking: Macca's doesn't deserve the treatment it's getting

Dunedin is in the midst of the great Ronald McDonald House debate. A similar version has played out in South Auckland.

Dunedin doesn't want a new one slated for their hospital.

In a nutshell, medical professionals are against it, because Macca's peddles trouble. It peddles fat and diabetes and health-related madness that the medicos then have to mop up in their wards.

It's nothing like that dramatic in reality of course, they just sell burgers.

But it's the premise that drives the great fat/sugar/junk food debate. It's been taken over by zealots who are so frustrated with our lack of self-discipline that they look to target corporate or governments in order to try and drum up some sort of solution they can hang their hat on.

The simple truth is the issues they deal with, the obesity and junk related problems, are entirely our fault. We choose to eat the crap in amounts that is harmful. That's the beginning, middle and end of it.

Now, it's easy to mount a defence of Ronald McDonald house.

I've seen the work it does. It's miraculous. Families are literally saved and held together because of it.

But - and here's the flip side that's actually got little to do with McDonald's - the magic is in the house. And would be no different if it was Air New Zealand house. Or Briscoes house.

And further, you can argue McDonald's does what it does for public relations related reasons. It makes them look good.

Do they do it for the right reasons? I would have thought yes. But it does them no harm to be omnipresent on the front line of the battle, given they (in the eyes of some) have played no small part in the broader based health-related problems.

You could go further, and this is where the health professionals with their objections come in.

It's a form of fat washing, like green washing. Companies that emphasise green credentials in their marketing in an attempt to sway your view of them or have you buy their brand because they love the environment. Fat washing would be the fast food operators looking to convince you they're good guys doing good work.

Both sides have decent arguments, but given these health-related issues really sit front and centre at our door step, and given having a burger as part of a healthy diet never did anyone any harm, you would have to conclude if you were neutral about this that Macca's don't deserve the treatment they're getting.

Health professionals have allowed their passion around the crisis they see in their wards each day to be sheeted towards people who really don't deserve the grief they're getting.