Fact check: Image shows fabricated McDonald's tweet about obesity

Ana Faguy, USA TODAY
·2 min read

The claim: Image shows McDonald's tweet saying obesity is racist, doesn't exist

An image purporting to show a tweet from McDonald's about obesity spread widely on social media earlier this month.

One Sept. 14 Instagram post featuring a screenshot of the supposed tweet garnered more than 400 likes in two weeks.

"The term 'obese' and the BMI scale were created by settler institutions and are inherently anti-black," the supposed tweet reads. "'Overweight' people don't exist, there's no one body type that determines what every other body should look like. Please don't give fatphobia a seat at your table."

Some social media users appeared to believe the tweet was real.

"They’re somewhat right about BMI being white-centric but overall still cringe corporate propaganda," one user commented.

But the tweet is digitally altered. McDonald's did not send such a tweet, a spokesperson confirmed to USA TODAY.

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment.

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McDonald's did not send tweet

The tweet in the image is not authentic, a spokesperson for McDonald's told USA TODAY.

The image shared on Instagram claims the tweet was published by the Twitter account @McDonalds, which is the company's official account. However, the purported tweet can't be found on the account's timeline.

The McDonald's spokesperson confirmed the Twitter account is run by the restaurant chain, but said the account never tweeted that text.

The purported tweet has a time stamp of "8:19 AM 9/8/22." While the timestamp matches a tweet on @McDonalds timeline, the subject of the real tweet is different.

The tweet reads, "when i order perfectly at the drive thru but they don’t know i’ve rehearsed this entire interaction hundreds of times."

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Our rating: Altered

Based on our research, we rate ALTERED an image that purports to show a McDonald's tweet saying obesity is racist and doesn't exist. A spokesperson for McDonald's said the tweet was not published by an official McDonald's account.

Our fact-check sources:

  • McDonald's, Sept. 23-28, Email exchange with USA TODAY

  • McDonald's, Sept. 8, Tweet

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Image shows fabricated McDonald's tweet about obesity

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