Business Research : Mcdonald’s Corp.

In January 2009-2010 the CDC released information that just over 37% of Americans on average were facing obesity (CDC/NCHS, National Health, and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2009–2010). The problem is that Americans are taking in more calories because of the types of food and ways those foods are prepared, coupled with the lack of exercise to reduce the build-up of those calories. The fast food chain, “McDonald’s” has become hypersensitive to this situation and is considering making changes in their menu to provide a healthier menu choice to patrons.

As a result of identifying this issue and in an effort to establish these changes and provide better choices McDonald’s has implemented a plan of research to help define their strategy. The research questions that they could be following should resemble the following research questions:

1. What is the definition of a healthy diet?
2. What factors appeal to one when purchasing at McDonald’s?
3. Given the choice of McDonald’s, Taco Bell or Kentucky fried Chicken, why would / wouldn’t one choose McDonald’s?
4. In your opinion, what is the healthiest meal you can purchase at McDonald’s?

The hypothesis of MC Donald’s food is consumers became ill. The hypothesis explains why millions of consumers eat the food. The consumer consists of eating fatty foods such as burgers, fries, desserts, and ice cream. “Nowadays, some two-thirds of Americans are overweight, roughly 30 percent of American children are overweight or obese, and Big Macs and super-size French fries have drawn criticism and lawsuits for MC Donald’s promoting obesity” “Governments and influential health advocates around the world blame the marketers for explosion in childhood obesity” (Deng, 2009, p. 42).

Across the entire nation MC Donald’s supersize has a negative impact to consumers. The menu has changed its course over a length of time. MC Donald’s restaurant has affected their eating lifestyle to consumers. MC Donald’s wanted consumers to purchase two meals instead of one. To understand the urgency of childhood obesity and the amount of McDonald’s fast food that is consumed by children, we would need a probability sampling. A probability sampling allows researchers to use a random sampling of the elements to minimize or eliminate sampling bias (Cooper & Schindler, 2011).

Within probability sampling, a systematic sampling would be very useful and appropriate for this study. Systematic sampling will have every kith element in the population sampled, beginning with a random start of an element in the range of 1 to k (Cooper & Schindler, 2011). Systematic sampling gives the research study a lot of flexibility while also making the study relatively simple. To draw the systematic sampling we would need to do the following:

1. Indentify, list, and number the elements in the population,
2. Identify the skip interval,
3. Identify the random start,
4. Draw a sample by choosing every kith entry.

To obtain our elements in the population for the study, the researchers will garner the cooperation of the local school districts. With the size of the sampling in mind, the skip interval will need to be appropriate to gather a good sampling within the allotted time and budget. The random start would also need to be an effective point in the sampling to ensure the study is timely and cost effective. With all of this information, the researchers would then decide an appropriate draw of the sampling population at every entry.

The sampling draw must be efficient enough to account for the parents who will not participate, but needs to be a workable number in case the majority of the targets do participate. We will take a sampling from states with different rates of childhood obesity. To get a diverse sampling we will take 3 states in each of the ranking categories.

The ranking categories are as follows: 1. 20% or greater, 2. 17. 5%-20%, 3. 15%-17. 4%, 4. 12. 5%-14. 9%, 5. 0-12. 4%. Here are the states we will be targeting and their respective percentage of children that are obese: 1. 0% or greater category-Texas, Illinois, Kentucky, 2. 17. 5%-20% category-Arizona, Ohio, Florida, 3. 15%-17. 4% category-California, New York, Nebraska, 4. 12. 5%-14. 9% category-Alaska, Missouri, Maine, 5. 0-12. 4% category-Utah, Iowa, Michigan (epicurious. com). By gathering data from these selected states, the study will have a picture of the amount of McDonalds that is eaten by children in the states that have the highest childhood obesity rating, the states with the lowest childhood obesity rating, and the states in between.

This approach will show a correlation between the amounts of McDonald’s fast food that is eaten by children to the percentage of obese children. The collection instrument that will be used for this study will be mail-in surveys. The mail-in surveys will cover the majority of the target population. This type of instrument is that no matter the economic situation of the participants, everyone can mail in a survey that has prepaid postage. The only concern here is if every target will take the time to fill out the survey and mail it in within the time frame given.

The distribution will take place at the schools. The survey packet will be sent home with the target students for the parents to fill out and mail back in to the researchers. “As large businesses continue to right-size or reduce their work forces as a way to remain competitive, small businesses are increasingly viewed as affording the most opportunities for viewed as affording the most opportunities for job seekers” “It contended that the real job growth (2. 6 million) was with firms employing five or fewer employees organizations it terms as micro businesses” (Beck, 1996, p. 8).

Business reports must have a regular assess to exceed strategic goals, customer, and partner expectation. The person in charge must have gathered information to provide an educated guess. The managers must take an initiative and see what will happen next. With compliance the voluntary and local governments include a safety study. The managers are committed to answering the following statements. The results reporting should include month, date, year, day, and time. This will help a manager study over his variable, bookkeeping, receipts, and reports.

He or she will see the audit for the company. The audits have to become a certain number to apply a study. The manager has to have a general annual report of an audit. The auditing of a company is done once a month in the restaurant. The audit consists of two parts statement required by the GAAP. If the manager is not prepared he or she will think critically. A business setting shows the report of every work in a restaurant. Business reports must show qualitative and quantitative information. The manager must analyze data on research goals and statistical.

This will help the manager to organize data and focus on his or her analysis. “In measurement terms, the sample must be valid. Validity of a sample depends on two considerations: accuracy and precision. Accuracy is the degree to which bias is absent from the sample. When the sample is drawn properly, the measure of behavior, attitudes, or knowledge of some sample elements will be less than the measure of those same variables drawn from the population. The measure of other sample elements will be more than the population values.

Variations in these sample values offset each other, resulting in a sample value is close to the population value. For these offsetting effects to occur, there must be enough elements in the sample, and they must be drawn in a way that favors neither overestimation nor underestimation. Increasing the sample size can reduce systematic variance as a cause of error. Systematic variance is a variation that causes measurements to skew in one direction or another. Precision of estimate is the second criterion of a good sample design.

The numerical descriptors that describe samples may be expected to differ from those that describe populations because of random fluctuations inherent in the sampling process. This is called sampling error and reflects the influence of chance in drawing the sample members. Sampling error is what is left after all known sources of systematic variance have been accounted for. The purpose of defining a sample size is to reduce the fail rate of data.

Type of research can also define what sample size is required to return sustainable data. According to Glenn D. Isreal, who authored “Determining Sample Size” in 1992, there are three criteria to be considered when establishing a sample group and what size it should be; level of precision, level of confidence or risk and the degree of variability in the attributes measured (Miaoulis & Michener, 1976) Fully understanding these variables in sample size help to detehow the research should be designed Knowing what level of confidence, precision and variability helps one understand how their research should be presented to gain the highest amount of return on their line of questions.

Research strategy, structure and then content will determine the course of responses offered leaving less room for error or failure. “In recent Gallup ‘Poll on polls,’ . . . When asked about the scientific sampling foundation on which polls are based . . . most said that a survey of 1,500 – 2,000 respondents—a larger than average sample size for national polls—cannot represent the views of all Americans. ” Frank Newport The Gallup Poll editor in chief, The Gallup Organization McDonald’s wants to run a promotional of nutritional food.

The statement made by workers was that MC Donald’s menu is bad for consumers and employees. Consumers’ triglycerides were going up and affected other cells in the body. The consumers were affected by the meals he or she ate and had to adjust to the food and prepare their bodies. With consumers behavior MC Donald’s has to use another step in cutting food. MC Donald’s has to come up with a plan so every consumer can eat healthy. MC Donald’s is a large business in the United States of America. Consumers across the nation have a hard time eating the food.

When consumers do purchase the food, he or she may order more meals. The educated guess comes into play with MC Donald’s menu is self-explanatory and has high calories. There is no one contributing factor of childhood obesity, rather the results are of many different variables. Some contributing factors could be their environment, genetics, behavior, and certain socio-demographics. Some environmental factors that may contribute to childhood obesity may include childcare environment, school, home and the community.

Genetics may contribute to childhood obesity because of the child’s metabolism to the excess body fat and weight and obesity may run in the family meaning if the parents are overweight then the child also may be overweight then the child may also be overweight as they get older because of the possible genetic link. The other variable that may play a major role in the childhood obesity epidemic can be behaviors like nutrition, physical activity, and free time. Nutrition is very important to children and getting a balanced diet each day can help the child to be healthy and continue with the healthy habits as the get older.

How much physical activity is the child actually getting each day because since children have so much access to technology like computers, cell phones, video games, and even television they would rather do that than go outside to play for at least an hour. Socio-demographics contribute to the child obesity epidemic because of the increased population rates with the low-income families and the various barriers that they have to face like safe places for the children to play or the lack of access to healthy food like fruits and vegetables.

For example The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health did a study on low income families with children with special health care needs in 2007 the results in all states was 0 – 99% of Federal Poverty Level (FPL) was 20. 7%, 100 – 199% of FPL was 21. 4%, 200 – 399% of FPL was 30. 5%, 400% of FPL or higher was 27. 4% (2012). To increase their market share, McDonald’s began promoting toward children. The organization used the lure of toys inside of their Happy Meals to entice children to order a hamburger, French fries, and a soft drink.

In the eyes of many consumers, this was an unethical scheme urge children to order the Happy Meals. With the amount of unknown calories and fat being consumed by the children, childhood obesity began to rise. McDonald’s faced an ethical dilemma. As an organization, do they continue to use toys from well-known movies such as Cars, Ice Age, and Shrek to push Happy Meals to children as child hood obesity hits a critical point, or do they begin to offer healthier options for their Happy Meals?

Would giving healthier options hurt sales and in the end hurt profits? The organization has five focus areas for the entire company. With the focus being on nutrition and well-being, McDonald’s began adding healthier options for the Happy Meal. Parents can now substitute apple slices for fries and either milk or juice for a soft drink. McDonald’s also began providing the nutritional information for each menu item. This information allowed parents to make a well-informed decision when ordering for their children.

In ddition to evolving an array of menu items, McDonald’s also offers many ways for customers to learn about the nutrition information of McDonald’s food with particular attention paid to McDonald’s offerings for children. McDonald’s has taken the right step ethically by offering nutritional choices and providing information to customers. The company has still been able to realize incredible profits while also serving the children of the communities in which they do business. The company saw profits in 2011 of $27,006,000 million dollars.

Our research study is used to test the hypothesis that the exposure to McDonald’s food consumption affects children’s weight and their behaviors. Reducing the television time, computer time, cellphones, and videogames use can reduce the overwhelming effects of obesity in children. Increasing nutritional and physical activity on a daily basis can help both children and parents to become healthier and reduce their body weight. To help reduce the effects of obesity in low-income families their communities need more access to healthier foods and safer places for children to play. If schools served healthier foods then the obesity rates may decrease. Schools need to implement health classes in schools so children can learn how to live and eat healthier.

The chart below shows how the obesity epidemic has affected our children several counties in California. How high would the effects of obesity be in your state, city, town or community? The effect of obesity is worldwide and needs to be addressed because how we eat as adults can greatly affect how our children look at food. The economy plays a major part in how we as parents can have access to healthy organic fruits and vegetables.

Americans die from obesity-related cause each year and litigation has undoubtedly brought a great deal of much-needed attention to this vexatious social problem” “In Pelman v McDonald’s a case decided in September 2003 a federal judge dismissed an amended complaint that attempted to hold McDonald’s liable for its customers’ obesity-related llnesses” (Falit, 2003, p. 725-729).

The sample size does affect the people in the United States of America. Almost millions of Americans eat McDonald’s on a regular basic. Americans obesity has the result of cost shifting unresolved in fast food restaurants. A supersize quarter pounder with cheese and fries has calories. The average calorie of a burger, fries, and drink does not change the price. The cost of a nutritional food is served at McDonald’s and people do purchase a meal.

Reference

1. Deng, Tianbai. (2009). MCDonald’s new communication strategy on changing attitudes and lifestyle. Volume 1, Issue1, p. 37 – 42.
2. Ogden, C. L. , Carroll, M. D. , & Kit, B. K. (2012). Prevalence of Obesity in America. NCHS Brief, 182 ).
3. www. aboutmcdonalds . com.
4. www. kidsdata. org
5. Falit, Ben. (2003). Fast Food fighters fall flat: Plaintiffs fail to Establish that McDonalds should be liable for obesity-related Illnesses. Volume 31 Issue 4 p. 725-729.