It seems like McDonald’s has finally caved in to pressure.  The word on the street throughout the western world has changed from enjoying every morsel one eats no matter how unhealthy it is, to fighting obesity with every bone in our bodies.  McDonald’s has pretty much had no choice but to chime in and has done so in a very dignified way with its new Happy Meal, due out this coming September.

The portion of French fries will be significantly smaller, but will be supplemented by a quarter cup of apple slices. The apple slice addition has sort of been offered recently.  But it was called Apple Dippers as it came alongside a caramel dip.  The dip will be discarded in the new meal. Still in the Happy Meal will be the choice of cheeseburger, Chicken McNuggets or hamburger but the new meal beverage choice will include fat-free chocolate milk and 1 percent low-fat milk.

By the first quarter of 2012, McDonald’s hopes these happy meals will be available in all its 14,000 restaurants around America.  There are more goals ahead.  According to an article in AdAge, in the next nine years, McDonalds is going to be putting in significantly less sugar, fat and calories via “varied portion sizes and what the company called reformulations.”  Indeed, already the foods offered made from chicken have undergone a 10 percent decrease in sodium and by 2015, the company hopes its sodium in general goes down by 15 percent.

On average, these changes will result in a 20 percent calorie reduction of the chain’s “most popular” Happy Meals.  This is a huge change since Happy Meals comprise 10 percent of all of the chain’s orders.