As I was doing research on the New York Times website for our final history paper, I came across an article written by the Associated Press titled “McDonald’s Exchanging $1 Menu for 2 for $2.” This immediately set off a light bulb in my head as I connected the content of this article to our class discussions in psychology about obesity. The article is a very short one not revealing much information but does describe that McDonald’s is launching a new sale replacing the Dollar Menu. Because the Dollar Menu has been around for about a decade, senior vice president for marketing in the United States Deborah Wahl believes the customers should have more of a flexibility of choice when deciding what food items to order. These new food items will include: McDouble, McChicken, small fries and mozzarella sticks.

In the BBC documentary watched in Psychology class, “The Men Who Made Us Fat,” this issue of increasing portion sizes such as the Big Gulp drink and supersize portions was a huge issue discussed. People will usually go for the bigger portion so they don’t have to get up a second time to get up for two. Furthermore, the price would be lower instead of buying two of the same item so people would just upgrade the size of their meal. With McDonald’s beginning to create this 2 for $2 menu they are forcing their customers who would normally just eat one food item off the dollar menu to now purchase two food items, making them consume more calories then originally intended.