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California's Santa Clara County Bans Happy Meal Toys
WrongSizeGlass writes "The L.A. Times is reporting that Santa Clara County officials have voted to ban toys and other promotions that restaurants offer with high-calorie children's meals. 'This ordinance prevents restaurants from preying on children's love of toys' to sell high-calorie, unhealthful food, said Supervisor Ken Yeager, who sponsored the measure. 'This ordinance breaks the link between unhealthy food and prizes.' Supervisor Donald Gage, who voted against the measure, said, 'If you can't control a 3-year-old child for a toy, God save you when they get to be teenagers.' The vote was 3 - 2 in favor of the ban."
California may as well be a whole 'nother country.
I know, let's not bother with that thing known as personal responsibility, let's legislate EVERYTHING!
Hey parents, your kids wouldn't be so fat if you didn't feed them crap food and let them sit on their butts in front of the t.v. all day and night.
Sent from your iPad.
This is an old argument. If you want to defend the happy meal then you need to defend Joe Camel too.
Wow so where exactly does it say government officials have to regulate every thing about our lives? And they think that just cause a meal has a toy the kid is going to want it and also the parent will give in? What happened to parents parenting???
And Christmas while they're at it. Dumbasses. This stupidity will not likely have any negative repercussions, aside from McDonalds franchises in the area having to come up with procedures to de-toy their happy meals. But what I suspect will happen is that the kids won't really want the happy meal without the toy, so the parent will take the cheaper route and get them a burger and fries from the dollar menu. With more calories than what they would have gotten in the happy meal. And no toy.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Queue up the Dr. Ferris speech about the real purpose of the law.
Controlling people. Not even for their own good, but merely for the sake of weilding control.
That is politics in America today.
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While this may work from a pure operant conditioning standpoint, but they fail to realize the problem. THE PARENTS. The kid screams and moans for McDonalds, so the give him McDonalds. The fatty foods lipids are the real addictive, so once hooked, Micky D's has got their childish love. It is the parents that are the problem. Who is the government to say that a piece of plastic in a bag can't be given away with a meal? Its the damn bad parents that allow their lardsacks children to accumulate mass that should be punished. So now when little Johnny screams for a happy meal and a toy, what are the parents going to do, "sorry johnny, but the county officials have made it illegal, no toys for you". So instead they still go get the happy meal (since there aren't any ramifications for that, yet) and then just buy the kid a damn toy elsewhere, completely sidestepping the actual problem.
And California wonders why their state is ready to self-implode. Treating the symptoms, not the problems. And really, is this a problem? If the parents choose to give their kids fast food, then its their choice! GTFOML. But there are a 1000 better things they could do with the taxpayers time to curb obesity other than just straight banning stuff. Reminds me of the salt ban that could be coming.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
I really HATE the fact that people actually believe that it's OK to mandate things as long as they or their proxy's are in charge.
How did you manage that before it was a law?
So if you figured out a system that worked by yourself...how does this legislation help you in any way?
Living With a Nerd
It's not a great idea.
As a parent myself, I just tell my kids that fast food is unhealthy in that it has a lot of calories and fat in it. I think we need to be aware of what lesson we're teaching. The point I want them to learn is not that $PARENT won't let them buy a toy with their lunch, it's that some foods eaten more than sparingly will do bad things to you. They naturally ask, so I just tell them the truth. You'll get fat. You'll feel lethargic. You'll develop diseases later in life like diabetes. Your arteries will clog with crap.
Sadly, it's all too easy to just ask them to look around the school. The consequences of bad food choices and a sedentary lifestyle are all over the place.
As a parent of a 7 year old daughter, I can safely say that she wants McDonalds to JUST get the toy - McDonalds tends to get all the Disney / Dreamworks / ____ movie toys, and it's a huge draw for her. I tell her no toy, and she'll want to eat elsewhere. If I had points, I'd mod you up. As is, I can only knowingly nod and smile in agreement.
I 100% agree that the President (be it Republican or Democrat) receives way too much credit and blame for everything that happens in a country. This is a clear case of an individual county making a decision, not Obama. However, it does match Obama's philosophy of regulating everything, massive govnernment control, etc.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
...this is a great idea. I had to institute a rule in my house that no toys were allowed with food. I found that when I forbid the kids from having the toys, when I gave them a choice of restaurants for dinner, they were much more likely to chose one with better food. It seems that the toys were a large part of the draw...take that away, and they were much more likely to eat something healthy.
As a parent, that's your right. But it doesn't seem that as a government, that right belongs with the county. This is no different from laws banning any "immoral" behavior -- it's the government meddling where it has no business doing so.
Oh, no you're missing the point. GPP's seen the light, and has found the ONLY GOOD WAY to deal with the issue. And now we can "encourage" everyone to do THE ONLY GOOD THING. After all, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
The best of all worlds: smug self-righteousness enforced with State Power. It's a popular and time-tested combination.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
"Well, it worked for me, so everybody else should be forced by law to do the same thing!"
Comment of the year
Some parents they it's their job to parent OUR children too, and they use government to make it happen:
i.e. banning our free choice to get happy meals with toys. I find these parents annoying, because they are basically insulting my intelligence, by presuming they know better than I do, how to be a parent.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
But the heat came round and busted me for smilin on a cloudy day
I'll try anything once. Twice if it tastes good
I'm completely for this. I see no difference between this and "Joe Camel", I hope this becomes a trend across the nation.
I was recently at a drive through, looking at the (empty) playground of a local Burger King. I thought how terrible it is that these fast food companies have tried to attract children to their unhealthy foods. Playgrounds, playful characters such as Ronald McDonald, Grimace, and the Hamburglar, happy meals, and movies such as Mac & Me, really show how terribly affected my generation was by this advertising. I remember wanting to go to McDonalds as a child so I could see a cloud and receive a toy. I highly suspect that these companies only scaled back their tactics as a defensive tactic after seeing how the cigarette companies were treated.
Yes, we can argue that parents should be more responsible, but parents cannot shield their children completely from outside influences, while -- to a certain extent -- government can. Parents were generally not giving their children cigarettes, but Camel advertising was shown to have produced an effect on children. Fast food restaurants giving "educational field trips" to elementary schools, as I recall from my own childhood, wasn't an altruistic act of these companies, they were in it for the long-tail. Lets not get started on birthday parties... These companies have been worse than the cigarette companies, showing no shame in their actions. As far as I know, I might be wrong, Camel never gave away children's toys, provided playgrounds, gave tours as elementry-school field-trips, nor had "Joe Camel" themed birthday parties. I doubt Camel ever had a man dress up as Joe Camel, blowing balloons (or smoke rings!) at birthday parties.
As someone who is also a parent of a young daughter, I find that the fact that I have a driver's license and money and my daughter lacks both to be a very effective means of preventing her from eating at restaurants I do not want her to eat at.
Just sayin'...
I wonder if the people of California could successfully cross the street without their nanny holding their hand.
How is offering toys in happy meals or other fast food meals praying on children when it is the parents buying the food!?! Not to mention what's next? Are they going to take away the play places in all fast food restaurants, because even without the toys my daughter would still want to go to play in the play place! She loves to meet all the kids and play in the tunnels!
How about baning parents from sending their kids to Catholic schools?
Smart six year olds do not do that.
If your six year old does, then clearly you fucked up as a parent and thank your lucky stars they chose that route instead of just murdering you in your sleep just to watch the life drain out of you.