McDonalds Facing Lawsuit For Happy Meal Toys 145
cosm writes "Looks like personal responsibility died a little bit again today. From the article: 'A watchdog group says giving away toys with Happy Meals contributes to childhood obesity, and threatens to sue. The [watchdog] organization on Tuesday served the fast food giant with a letter expressing its intent to sue if toys are not removed. The letter is legally required in several states before lawsuits can be brought under consumer protection statutes. ..."McDonald's is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children," Stephen Gardner, litigation director for the advocacy group, said in a statement. "McDonald's use of toys undercuts parental authority and exploits young children's developmental immaturity."'"
McDonald's Happy Meals Had Toys Since 1979 (Score:1, Interesting)
McDonald's undercuts parental authority? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you think McDonald's undercuts your parental authority then you had no parental authority to start with, and as much .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtwMRnc_oU0&feature=fvsr
Re:McDonald's undercuts parental authority? (Score:3, Interesting)
"If you think McDonald's undercuts your parental authority then you had no parental authority to start with, and as much as I dislike McD's I must say I'm pretty sure your fat kid isn't their fault."
Australia does it different (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:but if i can't blame everybody else (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Parental responsibility anyone? (Score:1, Interesting)
You are completely wrong. The sooner a child learnts to accept "no" for an answer without whining, the sooner he becomes a malleable, passive tool and occasional useful idiot. A child's job is to whine - to learn and to question - and it's your job to provide a convincing argument to him. He can't force you to do anything, so it's not the end of the world. And if you didn't expect your child to keep you up all night while he questioned everything, you may wish to reconsider your parenting!
Meanwhile, it's the adults who whine and don't accept "no" for an answer who actually go on to achieve interesting things, both for themselves and for the world around them. Channel his dissatisfaction.
Re:Parental responsibility anyone? (Score:2, Interesting)
You sound like one of those parents that have to beg children to behave.
Why get personal? Did it hit a raw nerve because I advocate reasoning rather than authoritarianism? :-)
Children don't have developed reasoning
Oh, children are very receptive to reasoning, and it can be formalised quite early if you're willing. Modern state education won't give you that, but the brain is there for training.
and thus can't always be convinced.
Unlike the average 40 year old, the perfect model of reason.
Telling your child "No" to McDonald's with an explanation that too much can make you fat should be enough.
You're insulting your child.
Most children can continuosly reply with "but why?" regardless of what you say. You can't convince that.
Most adults have given up on asking "but why?" to everything, instead developing a series of unquestioned assumptions and prejudices. It's a shame.
All you need to avoid is getting involved in a loop. You don't need to skip your responsibility to reason.
Missing the point (Score:5, Interesting)
This summary, and even the NYT article seem to be missing the point.
The point is not that MacDonald's serves crap. We all know MacDonald's serves crap. Even MacDonald's knows MacDonald's serves crap, which is why they are constantly saying "look! We have these non-crap things on the menu, TOO!" (And even when they do that, they point to their alternative to fries -- apples you can dip in a sugar mixture. Brilliant.)
The issue is advertising to children.
To quote the article: "Citing toys aimed at promoting the latest "Shrek" movie, the Center for Science in the Public Interest said that the plastic promotions lure children into McDonald's restaurants where they are then likely to order food that is too high in calories, fat and salt."
The important part of this line should be: "Citing toys aimed at promoting the latest "Shrek" movie, the Center for Science in the Public Interest said that the plastic promotions lure children into McDonald's restaurants" Because that is ILLEGAL.
Advertising to children is not legal. It's something that we, as a society, have looked the other way on for many, many years, but there are laws aimed at preventing it. When you advertise to children, you externalize the cost of advertising to the parents because the children will nag the parents until they cave. Influencing adults costs a lot more, when you do it directly, and sometimes it's just impossible. Many parents wouldn't dream of ever taking their kids to MacDonald's, but cave when they're shrilly begged for MacDonald's for the 400th time. You want to keep your children healthy by keeping them from eating that crap, but it's far, far easier to cave than to fight your kids every single day, and even if you do, their sitter or grandmother or even their teacher on a field trip will cave. It's practically an irresistible force.
I once talked to a MacDonald's ad man (a woman, in this case) who proudly pointed out to me that Ronald never eats the burgers. You see, any MacDonald's ad is broken into segments. The entertainment segments don't advertise. The advertisement is only the parts where Ronald isn't on screen. The parts where Ronald is on screen is apparently a friggin' PSA.
The toys in the Happy meal are supposedly a value item to help an adult make a judgment to buy a happy meal because it will both feed and entertain his/her child. That's value. That's also bullshit. The toy, as we all know, is there because kids will want to go to MacDonald's to get the toy.
They're advertising to children. They need to stop.
The fact that they serve crap is immaterial.
Re:If you are that fat (Score:1, Interesting)
>>Even someone very muscular, like Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was winning body building trophies was only 250lbs at 6'2". There's no excuse for anyone to be 350+ pounds.
I can actually disagree with that some. Though 99% of the people shouldn't be even remotely near that weight. I have a friend who is actually about 320 pounds or so and he isn't fat. He is about 6ft 6inches or so and the man could probably chuck a car engine like a medicine ball. The weird thing is he doesn't do steroids and isn't an avid weightlifter or anything. He is just naturally built like an Ox.
But also, even at 320 pounds or so he still wouldn't have any problems fitting onto an MRI machine or anything like that cause even at that weight, it is actually distributed properly.