President Clinton wants healthier movie theater snacks
What would you like to see for sale instead of artery-clogging buttered popcorn?
Tue, Mar 16 2010 at 6:36 AM EST
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Photo: Naydeeyah/Flickr Have you ever snuck your own snacks into the movie theater? Come on. Be honest. Why did you do it? Was it because you wanted to save money? Was it because their grandmother gave each of your children a huge bag of M&M’s for Easter, and you figured it would be better for them to eat some of that at the theater instead of adding a box of Milk Duds to the bag of M&M’s? (Oh, wait, that would be my family.)
Or, could it possibly be because you wanted something healthy to eat at the movie theater?
Movie theater popcorn is artery-clogging and over-the-top high in sodium. Sodas are full of empty calories, suspicious food dyes and high fructose corn syrup. Candy is, well ... it’s candy. Nothing is healthy about the three staples of movie theater snacking.
Hollywood News reports that Michael Lynton, CEO of Sony Pictures, announced that the Alliance for a Healthier Generation — an organization that includes former President Bill Clinton and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — wants to meet with theater owners to “offer advice on how to change your menus in a way that makes sense for your audiences and your business.” He made the announcement at at ShoWest, the nation’s largest convention for the movie theater industry.
Clinton said he would like to see the movie industry follow in the footsteps of the beverage industry, which took voluntary steps to encourage healthier lifestyles. He said:
The Alliance brokered voluntary agreements with the beverage industry that resulted in an 88 percent decrease in beverage calories shipped to America’s schools in just a few years. We are eager to work with the movie theater industry to craft similar agreements to provide healthy concession options in movie theaters.
Sony Pictures polled moviegoers about healthier snacks and Lynton says the results of the poll give the company a reason to urge theater owners to up the health factor at the concession stands.
- two-thirds of moviegoers and three-quarters of parents are more likely to buy healthy snacks at theaters if they are offered
- 42 percent of parents said they would buy concessions more often if healthy options were available
- 60 percent of parents said having healthier snacks in theaters would enhance their overall moviegoing experience
Fresh fruit, fruit cups, apples or veggies with dip, yogurt, granola bars, trail mix, baked chips and unbuttered, air-popped popcorn are some of the healthier snacks suggested by those polled.
Personally, I’d like to see healthier snacks served at movie theaters alongside of the traditional snacks. I’d certainly order a bag of air-popped popcorn instead of the bright yellow greasy stuff they currently sell. The healthy food would have to be competitively priced with the traditional food, though. There’s an upscale theater by me that sells small bags of air-popped popcorn that cost far more than the popcorn popped at the theater, and I’ve never bought it because of the price tag. Concession stand snacks are expensive enough already. If the healthier options are priced above the traditional, few people will buy them.
Would you buy healthy snacks at the movies? What products would you like to see available?
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Comments
Jack
03/18/2010 19:36 PM
No one should tell me what I can and can not eat. It is my choice and my choice only. This is just more control by the Progressives . . . Wake up people. We are losing freedoms.
Munchkin
03/21/2010 18:16 PM
This is the whole point--there are no choices now. A call for snack choices is not "control by the progressives." Pipe down. I personally do not enjoy eating or listening to other people eat at the theatre, but I would like the option to buy something edible should I be hungry.
Wess
03/18/2010 20:49 PM
I think this is what the projectionist was getting at Jack. You want to be social and be part of a community, you go with the flow with consideration for EVERYONE involved... not just yourself. You don't want popcorn? ... Don't eat in the theatre... eat at home. Common sense to me.
Susan
03/18/2010 14:36 PM
Yes, i do bring my own food to the movies (i make my own coconut oil popped popcorn with nutritional yeast and old bay) but thats even if i do go. If they came out with "healthy" snacks i dont think i would buy them, i would still bring my own.
For two reasons;
1. The food i make at home is from the bulk section at the local organic market and thus creates very little waste.
2. With the price of a movie going up $2+ in the past three years i dont want to spend money on the.... More
Ashley
03/17/2010 16:51 PM
I work at an AMC and the prices may be exorbitant but, as some one said previously, it does cost a lot of money to run a movie theatre properly. You want comfortable seats? The best sound and picture quality? 3-D movies? Clean and well taken care of theatres? Well if you count the prices of constantly having to update the theatre technology to your current liking, the price you pay is not that bad.
If you want your experience to be utterly horrible, by all means keep complaining! Or if.... More
Steve
03/17/2010 16:31 PM
I just read a piece in Variety about how much healthier popcorn is than before. I don't know why there needs to be some kind of "movement" declared about this thing. If you don't like the snacks - don't buy them! If no one buys them, they will change them. But again, strides have been made to make them more healthy in recent years.
Guest
03/17/2010 12:50 PM
It's about time someone suggested this. I think people just want to eat while watching, so they'll buy whatever's offered. Maybe this will cut down on all the loud and rude ripping open of ginormous candy packages too. How can I help support this?
Cheese
03/17/2010 12:49 PM
So what about movie theatre popcorn is "artery clogging"? It's way too much food, true, but the saturated fat link to heart disease has been debunked for years.
LauraB
03/17/2010 11:35 AM
I, who does not eat candy or movie theater popcorn and usually just buys a bottle of water, would double the amount of money I spent if there was a healthy selection at the theater. So there is a gain to be made by adding additional selections!
TheProjectionist
03/17/2010 11:16 AM
Ticket prices - go right back to the movie distributor.
Concession sales - pay for the astronomical rents and technical help : equipment does break down often , running equipment isn't cheap either... (it takes 20 people per auditorium all buying popcorn and drink combos just to make enough money to cover the run time life on a theater bulb for a 2 hour movie.) The staff are minimum wage part time employees, and these theaters can reduce costs with federal subsidies if their staff are.... More
Mark
03/17/2010 11:09 AM
You don't go to the movies without eating popcorn.
Jeffrey Wellman
03/17/2010 02:31 AM
How about lowering the f**king prices first? Come on. Large popcorn for $6? Large soda pop for $5? Sure, it has a free refill, but when do you expect me to get this? At the end of the movie? During?
F**k, and then theres the $9-10 ticket prices. The theaters love to rape people's wallets. For the same price of seeing a movie, I could just wait and then buy the f**king DVD for $16-20.
The difference is that I can pause the movie whenever and go take a p**s or a s**t.
This, was my two.... More
The Truth Sucks
03/17/2010 15:26 PM
You are the reason the prices are so high. Yes, you the moviegoer. I have no idea what your recent film fare has been, but I bet of the last 5 movies you saw, at least one of them cost more than 100$ million dollars to make. Did you see Avatar? GREAT movie, also the most expensive in the history of film-making. Did you watch Precious? No? How about Sherlock Homles? Yeah you probaby saw that one. Precious only cost 10$ million. Sherlock Holmes...90$ million. You get the idea.
The fact of.... More
Guest
03/17/2010 09:08 AM
You could blame it on the people who sneak snacks. The costs are probably raised to cover that. (yes I include myself in the blame)
Anna
03/17/2010 06:07 AM
to put it simply:
Movie theaters keep only about 10% of their ticket sales. The rest goes back to the movie studio. The only profit theaters can make is from the concession stand. They have to jack up prices to make any kind of profit.
Martin Levac
03/17/2010 02:08 AM
"Fresh fruit, fruit cups, apples or veggies with dip, yogurt, granola bars, trail mix, baked chips and unbuttered, air-popped popcorn are some of the healthier snacks suggested by those polled."
Notice the entire list is higher in carbs (not good) and lower in fat (worse) except perhaps the dip but even then I bet it's gonna be low fat with some kind of fat substitute like HFCS or gluten or caragheenan (none good).
"Would you buy healthy snacks at the movies? What products would you like.... More
Guest
03/17/2010 02:03 AM
Some people might say they want healthier foods but they don't. I worked at a theater for a while and even though they did serve salads, juice and some more healthy foods that isn't what people came for. Concession is the only part of the theater that earns the actual theater money (that's why the food is so expensive) and if people aren't going to buy it they aren't going to serve it!
For the most part, food people 'sneak' in (we didn't care either way if you brought your own food.... More
Jay T.
03/17/2010 00:40 AM
No, I definitely snuck it in to have a cheaper snack. Health doesn't exist as far as theater movies go. I worry about that later. And if Billy wants to put health food in there, that will be a bigger reason for people to sneak in snacks.
