Those evil McDonald's Happy Meals toys must go

[Tilted]

You can't make this stuff up. From a letter sent to McDonald's yesterday by the Center for Science in the Public Interest:

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (“CSPI”) demands that McDonald’s USA, LLC (“McDonald’s”) immediately stop using toys to market Happy Meals to young children.

This letter details McDonald’s illegal practices and offers to discuss resolution before CSPI files a lawsuit.

...

By advertising that Happy Meals include toys, McDonald’s unfairly and deceptively markets directly to children. When McDonald’s bombards children with advertisements or other marketing for Happy Meals with toys, many children will pester their parents to take them to McDonald’s. Once there, they are more than likely to receive a meal that is too high in calories, saturated fat, added sugars, and sodium, and devoid of whole grains. Developing a lifelong habit of eating unhealthy meals is likely to promote obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other life-threatening or debilitating diet-related diseases.3

Through the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, McDonald’s pledged to advertise only Happy Meals that meet McDonald’s nutrition standards for children. However, that pledge fails to address McDonald’s insidious use of toys to market its products to children. Regardless of the Happy Meal combinations shown in advertising, the vast majority of possible Happy Meals are nutritionally inappropriate for children. Moreover, the default4 choice for the side dish tends to be the nutritionally poor French fries, not the healthier Apple Dippers.

...

McDonald’s practice of dangling toys in front of children is illegal, regardless of what meal the child eventually gets. Not only does the practice mobilize “pester power,” but it also imprints on developing minds brand loyalty for McDonald’s. Because most of the company’s options (for young children and others) are of poor nutritional quality, eating Happy Meals promotes eating habits that are virtually assured to undermine children’s health.

...

In short, McDonald’s is deliberately marketing directly to unsuspecting little children by offering appealing toys—usually ones related to popular movies or television shows. McDonald’s marketing has the effect of conscripting America’s children into an unpaid drone army of word-of-mouth marketers, causing them to nag their parents to bring them to McDonald’s.

McDonald’s practices are predatory and wrong. They are also illegal, because marketing to kids under eight is (1) inherently deceptive, because young kids are not developmentally advanced enough to understand the persuasive intent of marketing;8 and (2) unfair to parents, because marketing to children undermines parental authority and interferes with their ability to raise healthy children.

Therefore, unless we can resolve this matter in the near term, CSPI will bring a lawsuit that seeks an injunction preventing McDonald’s from providing toys with purchases of any or all Happy Meals.

 

[Dev]

idiots

 

[vraiblonde]

Why is it always McDonalds? I'm convinced that these no-fun food Nazis are really Burger King executives.

 

[ImnoMensa]

You can't make this stuff up. From a letter sent to McDonald's yesterday by the Center for Science in the Public Interest:

What a boatload of horse chit.

You would think that reasonably intelligent people would have better things to do with their lives than complain to McDonald's about a cheap toy coming with a Happy meal. Their next target will be Cracker Jacks I suppose.

 

[RareBreed]

I saw this on TV last night. We only go out once a week for dinner and most of the time, it's to McDonalds. Not because of the toy in the Happy Meal. My kids get nuggets, apple fries and milk with their meals (their choice, not ours). The rare occasion that they do get the fries, they don't eat them. 99% of the time, the toy from the meal gets left on the table when we leave. I started at a very young age telling them that those toys were not to be taken home. The other 1%, they take them home and after a day or two of it just sitting on the table, I throw it away or put it in the "thrift store" bag.

If parents actually were responsible parents, this type of thing wouldn't even be an issue. Your kids shouldn't run the house and just because they demand to go to McD's for the toy in the Happy Meal, doesn't mean the parents have to do it. I guess all these years of depriving my kids of doing what "all the other kids are doing" is paying off.

Now to stop the schools from sending home labels on my kid's shirts saying we have to get Papa John's on a certain night!!!

 

[bcp]

Calm down people, its only the government trying to clear the way for the grand opening of McBamas

 

[Tilted]

Dear CSPI:

Would you like fries with your go #### yourself?

Sincerely,
Ronald McDonald

 

[jsouthan]

I saw this on TV last night. We only go out once a week for dinner and most of the time, it's to McDonalds. Not because of the toy in the Happy Meal. My kids get nuggets, apple fries and milk with their meals (their choice, not ours). The rare occasion that they do get the fries, they don't eat them. 99% of the time, the toy from the meal gets left on the table when we leave. I started at a very young age telling them that those toys were not to be taken home. The other 1%, they take them home and after a day or two of it just sitting on the table, I throw it away or put it in the "thrift store" bag.

If parents actually were responsible parents, this type of thing wouldn't even be an issue. Your kids shouldn't run the house and just because they demand to go to McD's for the toy in the Happy Meal, doesn't mean the parents have to do it. I guess all these years of depriving my kids of doing what "all the other kids are doing" is paying off.

Now to stop the schools from sending home labels on my kid's shirts saying we have to get Papa John's on a certain night!!!

And there lies the problem. Actually expecting parents to raise their children instead of policing what is right and wrong for them, how absurd!

 

[RareBreed]

And there lies the problem. Actually expecting parents to raise their children instead of policing what is right and wrong for them, how absurd!

What really burns me is when their friends come over and they start demanding stuff out of me. My kids look at them like "Oh boy, you've done it now!"

 

[Larry Gude]

McDonald’s unfairly and deceptively markets directly to children

How is it deceptive?

 

[Merlin99]

First it's McDonalds, next thing you know there isn't a prize in the Cracker Jacks box.

 

[Star_Rider]

And there lies the problem. Actually expecting parents to raise their children instead of policing what is right and wrong for them, how absurd!

But I thought that it took a village to raise a child???

 

[chernmax]

First it's McDonalds, next thing you know there isn't a prize in the Cracker Jacks box.

It's the only reason to even buy Cracker Jacks!

 

[hvp05]

If parents actually were responsible parents, this type of thing wouldn't even be an issue.

There ya go. Problem is, this goes beyond parents and children; more and more people in general are becoming convinced that they can not effectively manage their own lives, and therefore need outside guidance to ensure they don't blow up the house while making coffee, or amputate a finger while tying their shoes, or whatever.

 

[Matthew]

It's the only reason to even buy Cracker Jacks!

The junk they pass off nowadays as prizes isn't worth the effort. Heck, even the CJ tastes stale.

 

[Matthew]

There ya go. Problem is, this goes beyond parents and children; more and more people in general are becoming convinced that they can not effectively manage their own lives, and therefore need outside guidance to ensure they don't blow up the house while making coffee, or amputate a finger while tying their shoes, or whatever.

Ah, but my friend, we have lived in the nanny state, aided and abetted by the lawyer state, which amidst great fanfare, has abrogated parental rights to the point that anything a parent does to constitute discipline and direction can be viewed as "abuse". Those things that my parents taught me as the difference between right and wrong have been inundated by a system in chaos and "rights" of the children and now those children have children who have perpetuated the chaos. While we are indeed (or were) a nation of laws, there is a plethora of statutes that border on insanity and need to be rectified or abolished. Begin with that travesty called the ACLU for one.

 

[chernmax]

The junk they pass off nowadays as prizes isn't worth the effort. Heck, even the CJ tastes stale.

Agree... Shut it down! Nowadays if you're not pulling out an iPod or DS from a CJ Box, most kids will just throw that sh*t away.

 

[vraiblonde]

How is it deceptive?

Do you not remember how our collective youngsters would beg for a Happy Meal, then only eat about two bites of it? With the exception of the kid that would take one bite out of each chicken nugget so nobody else would snitch her leftovers?

They're selling a toy, not food. Deceptive. No kid wants the food - they want the toy. And toys are high in calories, fat and sodium, therefore they must be banned.

 

[Larry Gude]

Do you not remember how our collective youngsters would beg for a Happy Meal, then only eat about two bites of it? With the exception of the kid that would take one bite out of each chicken nugget so nobody else would snitch her leftovers?

They're selling a toy, not food. Deceptive. No kid wants the food - they want the toy. And toys are high in calories, fat and sodium, therefore they must be banned.

 

[Cowgirl]

This is ridiculous. Parents should quit being ninnies and say "no" to their kids a little more often. Seriously, how hard is it to take responsibility for yourself and your children and quit waiting on the government to outlaw every food choice that isn't healthy? Don't get me wrong, McD's is awful crap, but I'm not in favor of banning something just because people are too moronic to say no.