Banning Fast-Food Toys
ByHere’s the summary paragraph from the New York Times article.
In what it described as a blow against the fattening temptations of fast food, the board of supervisors in Santa Clara County, south of San Francisco, voted Tuesday to ban the promotional toys that often accompany child-size portions of cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets if those meals don’t meet certain nutritional standards.
From my vantage point, this is absolutely ridiculous. Here are a few thoughts on the vote and one thought on the comment from the McDonald’s spokesperson.
1) These supervisors need more work.
The fact that fast-food toys even got a vote serves to show me that either everything is perfect in Santa Clara County or these people have way too much time on their hands.
2) Is this really something that should be addressed by a board of supervisors? And is it something they should be able to ban?
If a company wants to sell fatty foods and put toys in a box for children along with those fatty-foods, don’t they have a right to do so? It’s not like they are forcing children to eat the food or forcing parents to buy it for them. Which leads to point number 3.
3) Do the toys tempt children to such an extent that their parents cannot say, “No”?
This is the big question for me, because I am sure there are some parents behind this vote. And I just don’t understand it. If you don’t want your children getting fat off fatty foods, then don’t give them fatty foods. You have a choice not to eat fast food. Eating at McDonald’s or Wendy’s or wherever is not mandatory. I know many parents don’t realize this nowadays, but it is possible and wise and very good to often tell your children, “No.” The reality is that if your kid is obese, it is usually your fault as the parent. Not all the time I realize (the kid might have some sort of disease, etc.), but most of the time, yes. After all, you buy the food and monitor what and when your child eats. Or you don’t (which may be the problem).
How many people are under the impression that eating fast food is good for you anyhow? Sure, low-income families may eat that food more, but the reality is, eating out at fast food restaurants is, in the end, more expensive than going to the local grocery store and managing a simple list. So the argument that you are protecting low-income families from obesity is ridiculous. They still have a choice, to eat or not to eat. The parents can still say ‘No’ to both themselves and their children. Mr. Yeager, who interestingly enough doesn’t not have children, doesn’t seem to understand this.
4) A note to McDonald’s: Don’t try to defend the toys by telling us that your “Happy Meals provide many of the important nutrients that children need.”
That is just ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. So your food has zinc, iron, calcium and some protein. It also has 30 percent of your daily intake of fat (for an adult by the way). Just face up to the fact that your food isn’t the most nutritious. Don’t act as if I am a moron and try to convince me that it’s ok to give my children this food because it has zinc. Come on.
When I head to McDonald’s or any other fast-food joint, I am well aware that the food isn’t the best for me or my children. That is why I head there rarely. It’s a special treat. So I would rather have McDonald’s or whoever say, “We know our food isn’t equal to fruits and veggies. I am the spokesperson for McDonald’s and I don’t eat there every day (and I eat for free). And neither should you or your children.”
That would be much more refreshing and actually might get me to make a trip for some happy meals sometime in the next six months.
As you can tell, I was a bit fired up by this vote. No. I am not headed to Santa Clara anytime soon for Happy Meals, but a vote such as this just seems to give greater excuses for poor parenting and more power to government officials to monitor what is good for us. If we don’t want McDonald’s giving toys along with bad food, we don’t need a council vote. We just need to stop buying the Happy Meals. Or at least I think so.
5 Comments
April 28th, 2010 at 10:25 am
I agree with some of your points and disagree with others.
First– I agree with…
3– Parents need to take more control and responsibility of their child/children’s diet.
4– McDonald’s, IMO, participates in blatant false and misleading advertisement.
Now where I disagree–
– Marketing towards children is wrong in all respects. They do not possess the skills or logic at a young age to understand that the food is bad when the marketing is for toys, etc. I think marketing to children to be unethical, and I do think it should be legal. McDonald’s advertising on report cards, offering free meals for good grades at fast food places, etc. None of this should be allowed.
–I think you and I address this issue differently than most Americans. We are in a minority group– we are educated and seek information prior to decision making. Much like moral and other decisions, we make them differently than most people in this country. Most people assume advertising is completely truthful. Most people do not give much thought to what they eat or when. It is disappointing to have to say this, because obviously it makes a big difference in ones quality of life, but people simply are not active in their decision making. In a perfect world, people would stop buying happy meals, but let’s face it…the world is not perfect and #3 is also still a problem! You and I go against the grain, but most parents do not. Most of society does not!
–As a parent who generally throws those toys away prior to handing my child food on the rare occasions we swing by Sonic or Chick-Fil-A, I would appreciate not having those ill-constructed, generally unsafe (bpa containing plastic, lead, etc), low quality toys placed in the bag. I ask repeatedly not to receive one, yet the employees still give us the toy! This is a waste in so many ways– the energy, water and additional resources to produce a toy that instantly gets thrown in the trash taking up space in landfills and potentially polluting the environment further– and really gets me going! For a while, I would return the toys, but that really does not solve the problem.
As far as I am concerned, I wish the ban was nation-wide.
April 28th, 2010 at 10:31 am
Oh, so all that to say I disagree with 1 and 2. If parents are not stepping up to the plate, someone needs to, because the kids are going to pay long after the parents are gone (through adulthood or death), and we, as a society, are asking them to pay with their lives and health for something they had little control over in their childhood, so unless #3 is REALLY going to happen (let’s be realistic in that assumption, btw), I think the supervisors are doing the right thing.
April 29th, 2010 at 8:59 am
Thanks Maria. I always appreciate your thoughts and your willingness to disagree.
Some thoughts in response.
Though I agree that marketing to children is unethical to a certain degree, I have difficulty believing this is something that our government needs to address with laws. Not to mention I think it is one very difficult to define and adequately rule against. Advertising no doubt appeals to the desire within the human heart for happiness–to both children and adults alike. I don’t have a huge difficulty with my kids seeing such advertising, b/c it affords me an opportunity to train them. I may not see the affects right away, but long-term, if I am diligent, I hope I will.
I also believe that much of the advertising I see geared to adults should be considered unethical, b/c there is a great deal that is blatantly misleading. And underlying virtually all advertising is from a Christian perspective, the lie that you cannot be happy without such and such a product or a lifestyle, etc. From God’s perspective, I have to think most of it is out of bounds, but how far do we go with our laws? And on what do we base them? Not to mention, if we consider this unethical, what about the issues that I believe are much more clear in their evil, yet more widely accepted? I would rather have those issues that I believe are much clearer and indeed, much more important in their evil addressed by our government (which is in a sense, to say, addressed by us).
If the parents are not taking responsibility for their children in this regard (the response to advertising in the purchasing of products or fast food), (or the individual for himself, no matter his education or socio-economic situation) I don’t think this means the government should. I think that mentality is a dangerous one. Because I am not sure where it stops. Plus, as I just said there are some moral issues of the day that I believe are much clearer and much more important that are far from adequately being addressed, so the ethics of things seems to be quite muddy for most.
We can agree to disagree on the abortion debate, but that is certainly the one that comes to my mind. I am certainly for choice on the fast food and toys, but not on the abortion front. Not because the former isn’t unethical to a certain degree, but because its pales in importance and clarity (at least from my perspective). Not trying to get into a debate on that front, but that is the example that comes to mind from my perspective.
Finally, though I know I am not as ‘green’ as I should be, I certainly agree that those toys are a good example of the wasteful use of resources. I just threw out a couple of Scooby Doo happy meal do-dads that would certainly fit that category!
Thanks again…
April 29th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Maybe the fact that I’m Italian makes it too easy for my and my wife: I think eating at McDonald’s is not mandatory; when we decide to have a meal away, normally we eat a pizza. You say: too easy and too obvious for people living in Italy. Probably yes, you’re right; but, believe me, even in Italy and specially in a big town like Milan where I live, eating at McDonald’s is a common practice.
Nevertheless I think that specially in these time it’s up to parents to educate kids to a healthy eating: is it too challenging? I don’t think so, it’s as always. Being parents was never a smooth work and - again - eating at a fast food restaurant is not mandatory and God’s willing we still can leverage on our kids more than anybody or anything else, even than any marketing plan.
April 29th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Well, if I am completely honest, even though I do wish the ban was nation-wide, I also am willing to admit that I think if the Federal government took it up, I would roll my eyes, and have a different opinion. It is not that I do not want the toys gone. It is not that I do not want the advertising to be toned down. It is as you say– bigger problems. Corporations and industries behaving badly. The oil spill. Health care. Immigration. Wall Street. There are a lot of things I would rather see taken care of on a national level than toys.
However, I do not know enough about the local situation to know if the supervisors really do have more to worry about or not. Some local governments have a lot less pressing problems than others.
Re: advertisement as a teaching opportunity, I agree at a certain age, it is that, but at age one or two? Even at three it is sometimes hard for my son to comprehend, and he is further along than many of his friends in understanding that not everyone has what we do and we don’t have to have everything. He’s no genius, so complete comprehension is limited, and I suspect it will remain this way for a while, as children do not understand completely the difference between reality and fairy tale/fiction until they are around 7 years old. TB actually believes there is a race in California that involves Lightning McQueen!
All of that being said, let’s say there are people (parents) who want a change (beyond me and you). We can look for that change in many ways, but if we go with economic (I bet you knew I’d pick that one), behavioral economists have studied how to change consumer behavior at the grocery store. They find that making healthy foods less expensive does not increase their demand, but if you increase the price of processed foods, the consumer is more likely to chose healthy foods. This could be partially changed in a couple of ways (alone or in combination):
– reduce the subsidy on grains and meats/dairy. Currently, these are the two (three) most subsidized foods in the US. vegetables and fruits barely get any subsidy.
– eliminate subsidies all together. There are positives and negatives to this. For farmers able to sell direct to consumers it is of minimal consequence. For those raising products that are sold to a processor, then to a grocer, this is a bigger problem. The food will either a) become too expensive or b)remain the same price and the farm will not be profitable. I’m sure you can make an accurate assumption on my opinion and how I see this working in the favor of the industrial farmer with the costs being born by society (pollution, poor nutrition, etc)
–tax the unhealthy foods based on a variety of factors (generally externalities).
I’m sure we could come up with more. Outside of the economics, how do we encourage more parents to become more actively involved? Non-Christians? Christians? Poor? Rich? Middle Class? Black? Native American? There are a million sub-groups with inactive parents, each motivated differently. In a bubble, I think the answer is easy. In a diverse group, it is less so!
And limiting toys to “healthier” options (there are salads at McDonalds with more fat than a Big Mac…that’s sad too) as an attempt to disassociate toys from unhealthy food is something social-psychologists would probably agree on, we we could look at it from that perspective as well.
On the lines of “I agree!” I find marketing in general is unethical. There are some exceptions, but the truth is, a lot of it is intentionally misleading. Drug advertisements, for example, and the “fine print.” At the same time, I agree that people are a part of the problem. If I see an advertisement for a drug that will “fix my problem,” a problem I may have never known I had, and I take that over making a disciplined lifestyle change, I encourage the advertisers!
I also agree that people are looking for happiness in the wrong places and in the wrong ways.
All of that to conclude with– how do I get the fast food joint to stop giving us a toy? How do we change consumer behavior? Maybe while we are at it, we can figure out how to stop people from building in flood plains, directly behind levees, and move the capital inland? Oh, and realistically, how can we change industrial/commercial behavior?
It’s always a pleasure…with you and Erin.
I bet you are itching to get home to her and meet your new little man! I am praying daily that he waits for you, that you arrive in time, and the health of Erin and Isaiah.