Here in the Philippines, there are the rich famiies, and the poor families, and a growing middle class (that’s us) who have to work for a living.
At the same time, globalization has started to perculate into the provinces.
Twenty years ago, they opened a McDonald in our provincial capital city.
Five years ago, Jolibee (the Pinoy equivalent of McDonalds) opened a nice restaurant down the street in center city.
But two years ago, the local mall opened, with KFC, McDonalds, and various locally based fast food outlets for those who go to shop.
Most of these restaurants are a lot more expensive than the kiosks on the street (Hamburger 50 pesos ($1) vs 25 pesos. But you do get airconditioning, clean restrooms, no flies, and presumanly no food poisoning.
And, this being the Philippines, you get rice with y0ur meals.
During school vacation, there are lots of classes for the up and coming middle cllass kids to take. We have a large hall in our business, which we rent out. Last year, we had art classes here for 6-12 year olds, and the year before, a church held vacation Bible School in our meeting room.
But for our granddaughter, the best part of vacation is doing a week in the “kiddie Crew” at the local McDonalds.
Usually the “kiddie crew” is given a tee shirt and hat, and spends a few hours “helping” at various areas in the restaurant for a week.
Here is how the Philippine Star describes the program:
It has three main activities per day — a values formation lecture that fosters a different value per day, on-floor training and art workshop. With a healthy mix of fun and learning activities, the kids will be taught how to man the counter, greet and serve guests and how to clean up. Fun art classes will also be held. Kiddie Crew members will be making Ronald and the Gang Sock Puppets, a McDonald’s Mosaic and a special treat for moms. All these activities are anchored on promoting positive values among the kids.
So it is a combination of teaching the work ethic while having fun.
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Nancy Reyes is a retired physician living in the rural Philippines. Her website is Finest Kind Clinic and Fishmarket.
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2 users commented in " McDonald’s Kiddie Crew "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackMy question here would be if most of the local population was overweight or not, before all the fast foods came to town. I would truly like to know if the critics are right in their assessment that fast food causes fat american children. of course I’d love to believe it doesn’t
The middle class is starting to be obese here, even before the fast food started. if you work at an office job an take a bus you can get fat on rice and fish.
As for fast food restaurants causing obesity, I’ve worked on Indian reservations in the US where obesity is epidemic but there are no fast food restaurants. The people blame the cheap high protein commodities that they were given to improve their nutrition for the obesity,since tribes that still follow traditional diets don’t get fat.
I think it’s not fast food per se, but lack of physical exercize and a high fat/high protein diet.
I also suspect phytoestrogens in plastic etc might have something to do with the problem.
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