Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food by Eric Schlosser

Chew on This was published in May 2006. During the first two weeks the book was for sale, a couple of good things happened. On May 3, former president Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and Mike Huckabee, the Republican governor of Arkansas, held a press conference to make an important announcement about the marketing of soda in schools. Clinton and Huckabee had persuaded the Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo to remove all their sugary soft drinks from elementary, middle, and high schools by 2010. These unhealthy drinks would be replaced by fruit juice, water, and sugar-free soft drinks. Both men had recently battled health problems linked to being overweight. Clinton had undergone heart surgery, and Huckabee had developed diabetes. "We are eating more fast food and got into this supersize culture," Clinton said. "I used to be part of it." For Clinton and Huckabee, the agreement with the manufacturers of Coke and Pepsi was a bold step toward improving the health of American children. When Democrats and Republicans start to agree on an issue, big problems become a lot easier to solve.

Four days after that announcement, the Walt Disney Corporation and the McDonald's Corporation let it be known that their exclusive marketing deal was about to end. For ten years the arrangement had required McDonald's to promote every children's film that Disney released. Although the deal had provided about $1 billion in free advertising for Disney, an article in the Los Angeles Times suggested that Disney no longer wanted to be associated with the unhealthy food sold at McDonald's. "There is value in fastfood tie-ins," said Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple Computer and a major investor in Disney. "But there are also some concerns, as our society becomes more conscious of some of the implications of fast food." In October 2006, Disney announced that it would no longer allow characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck to be used in most advertisements for unhealthy foods-and that foods containing trans fats would no longer be served at its theme parks by the end of 2007.