Subway Had Jared, Now Taco Bell's Got Christine

Dec. 29, 2009— -- Just in time for the post-holiday gorge in front of the TV, Taco Bell is unleashing a weight loss advertisement campaign that is the first to compete with Subway's Jared Fogle.

Meet Christine: A woman who lost 54 pounds in two years by choosing the low-fat "Fresco" menu items at Taco Bell in place of her old daily fast food choices.

The counterintuitive and controversial pitch that fast food can be good for weight loss won Subway billions of dollars over its competitors in 2000. The before and after footage of Fogle, who lost 245 pounds in a year, boosted Subway's per store sales growth to seven times the industry average in 2000 and nearly doubled their previous year's sales, according to "Market Busters: 40 Strategic Moves That Drive Exceptional Business Growth," published by the Harvard Business School Press.

But dieticians are on the fence about whether these campaigns ultimately hurt or help a nation where more than a third of meals are eaten in restaurants and more than a third of the population is obese.

"What I like is the availability of fast food items that are improved. Perfect is the enemy of good, and these offerings are pretty good," said Dr. David Katz, director of Medical Studies in Public Health at Yale University. But, "I also suspect that most people hoping to 'be' Christine will be very disappointed, just as most Jared wannabes are. These are likely people who made a dramatic commitment to lifestyle change, and simply relied on a particular source of convenience food as part of their strategy. That doesn't make that source of convenience food the solution!"

Connie Diekman, a registered dietician and director of nutrition at Washington University in St Louis, pointed out that "fast food dining is a part of many people's lives, so having options that are healthier is very important -- the ads will hopefully make it clear that consumers or customers have choices, but they must make the healthier choices."

Taco Bell picked up on that reality in the ads for the Drive-Thru Diet menu. "When I decided to trim down, I knew I had to be realistic with myself," Christine said in the ads. "I didn't want to cut out my fast food, so I started choosing Fresco items from the Drive-Thru Diet menu. These results aren't typical, but for me, they are fantastic."

A host of caveats as long as some drug ads follow her story: Christine's weight loss was "exceptional" according to the commercials, her taco bell trips were part of a larger effort to cut calories down to 1250 a day, and the Taco Bell Drive Thru Diet shouldn't be considered a diet.

Yet, some who study the fast food industry say such healthy choices campaigns can't undo the harm of the unhealthy campaigns.

"This is preposterous. This is the same Taco Bell that has the Volcano Nachos (almost 1,000 calories), that boasts about the 1/2 pound cheesy potato burrito, that has systematically encouraged people to eat between meals with their 4th meal campaign," said Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.