McDonald's: Nobody Is Forcing You To Buy Happy Meals

Recently, City Councilman Leroy Comrie Jr. floated the idea of requiring fast food meals to meet certain nutritional standards if they include toys. However, his mission is being thwarted by...free will! In a lawsuit, Sacramento mom Monet Parham accuses McDonald's of luring children with toys, but the fast food chain says the case should be dismissed because parents can always choose not to buy the meals for their kids. "In short, advertising to children any product that a child asks for but the parent does not want to buy would constitute an unfair trade practice," they said in a statement. However, not everyone is buying it.

Stephen Gardner, litigation attorney for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said, "What is different about this motion is that McDonald's has chosen to blame the victim—saying that it's all Monet Parham's fault if she doesn't force her daughter to ignore the onslaught of McDonald's marketing messages." Maybe she can't keep her daughter from seeing the ads, but it is her responsibility to own up to the consequences of buying her kids fattening meals. And since when are parents incapable of explaining their decisions to their children? Or has "Because I Said So" gone out of fashion?

In the suit, Parham admits that she often tells her children "no" when they ask for Happy Meals, which should logically be the end of this whole fast-food-is-trying-to-make-my-kids-fat conversation. But as Comrie Jr. argued previously, "Children, lured in with toy giveaways at an early age, are more likely to develop a habit of eating unhealthily." Whatever, we've been eating Happy Meals since we were kids and we have absolutely no problem being mysteriously drawn into buying an extra large fries whenever we see a McDonald's.

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By Jaya Saxena in Food on April 19, 2011 5:29 PM

Comments [rss]

GregJG

Most Mothers don't even cook dinner anymore. There is hardly any family time at the table. A Nutritious meal starts at home from your Mothers loving kitchen. Once you go the way of fast food it becomes very hard to get kids off of it. Parenting is a full time job but alas, that also has gone the way of the dodo. We have all these laws now that say corporations can do much about anything. Well guess who lobbied for this?

felixthecat

tired of all these mcdonald size people on the streets and train. they are disgusting and they can't move. fucking movie are holding up society and we have to subsidize their healthcare while mcdonald reaps all the benefits. and mcdonald boils chicken ALIVE. fuck mcdonalds.

youngpro

let those people suffer from lack of healthcare so animals can be 'saved'?

Health Habits

So why do we not allow cigarette or alcohol producers to advertise to kids?

Politburo

Presumably because kids cannot legally buy those products. Not so in the case of fast food.

anon

your right. it should be allowed.

robingee

Since when do kids have jobs and paychecks and buy their own food? You eat what your parents give you.

Google Santorum

What happened to Parenting? This whole movement (as Roger says: "nanny state assholes" - which is perfect) seems to float on the idea that "I cant raise my own demon seed without having the laws and govt interfere on my behalf against everything I disagree with or dislike". While Mom runs off to her Pilates class. Whats next? Banning Ladies Night because whores cant control their liquor?

NlGGAZ

C'mon now. Now I'm not saying what they are doing is right or wrong but you know that no one is ever going to get Mcdonald's and the fast food and soda industry regulated with all the money that they spend in lobbying. They could probably stop the cocaine and heroine industry before they could regulate the fast food industry.

justthinkin

Aha, you just discovered McDonald's secret. Why do you think they get their beef from Columbia?

NlGGAZ

Man, Happy meals used to make me genuinely happy. I remember back in the day when they had Masters of the Universe and Spider-Man and his amazing friends with the toys and I loved it! That was back in the days of transfats so the food tasted a whole lot better. That was back in the day when Ronald Mcdonald was your friend in the commercials and he would skate with your ass when the sad piano music would come on and then the hamburgler would steal the burgers and him and grimace would save the day. It was a simpler time back then. I don't think giving kids a fantasy of fun when eating is the problem. The problem is when it's a daily occurrence. Try giving them fast food when they've accomplished something or earned it like once a month or every 2 months.

Politburo

Fats in their pure state have no taste and there is no discernible taste difference between food made with transfat and without. Texture differences can occur, though.

Roger_the_Shrubber

These nanny state assholes wake up every single day with one thought: how can I find a new way to control how everyone else lives their life.

nimbyist

This woman is first and foremost a crusader and secondly, a parent. Explains why her parenting blows.

Monet Parham-Lee serves as a Regional Program Manager within the Network for a Healthy California; a program of the California Department of Public Health funded by the USDA-Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

http://www.futureofcapitalism....

da_phonz

Exactly, she can convince hundreds of people to ban toys from happy meals but can't convince her kid that McDonald's isn't a diet?

jp

Socialism doesn't work...McDonalds should be able to sell what they want...if the market wants crap food then they should have it. I just shouldn't have to pay for their socialized medical care.

robingee

You are not now or ever will pay for anyone else's medical care. So shut it.

Guest

We all pay for other people's medical care in this country. It's call Medicaid and Medicare.

robingee

Good.

I also pay for other people's fire dept service if their house goes up in flames, and for their kids to go to school, and for you to go to the library. I'm fine with it.

snickerdoodlegoth

I sympathize with parents like Parham who must be tired of playing the bad guy and having to fight with their kids every day about things that Billion Dollar Marketing Machines like McDonald's use every day to entice children to buy their crap. "The Nag Factor" is very much a part of fast-food businesses' strategies, especially places like MickeyD's.

Critics say, "Turn off the TV", but have you ever noticed just how ubiquitous MickeyD's advertising is? It's absolutely everywhere, you can't escape it. They are even in schools now. Parents are completely out-gunned by billion-dollar corporations and McDonald's knows it.

At the very least, why not ban McDonald's commercials from children's programming? If we can ban cigarette companies from marketing to children then why not fast-food restaurants, whose food are just as unhealthy as smoking a cigarette?

Read this - Morgan Spurlock: The Truth about McDonald's and Children.