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California's Santa Clara County Bans Happy Meal Toys

Posted by timothy on from the when-self-righteousness-attacks dept.

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."

8 of 756 comments (clear)

  1. I swear.... by Em+Emalb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    1. Re:I swear.... by ArcherB · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I know, let's not bother with that thing known as personal responsibility, let's legislate EVERYTHING!

      Whole heartedly agree!

      I don't even know if it's so much personal responsibility, as that means responsibility for one's self. This is about parental responsibility. Which makes me laugh when I read, "This ordinance prevents restaurants from preying on children's love of toys' to sell high-calorie, unhealthful toys..." Kids shouldn't have a say. If the parents are doing their jobs, it won't matter who the restaurants prey upon.

      Besides, it not so much the toys that bring 'em in. It's parent's being too lazy/busy to make dinner for their child. As a parent, I can understand this as my wife and I work three jobs between us and go to school. Sometimes, it's kinda nice to eat out on the cheap. (We do Chick-fil-A. Does that count as crap food?) The toy is just a bonus to keep our child busy long enough so we can finish our meals with some level of peace. (Besides, I like to play with them too)

      What's next? Are they going to ban the playgrounds, clown mascotts and kid's clubs?

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    2. Re:I swear.... by jd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So if you want a nation worth living in, and the adults won't fix their own (or their children's) self-destructive cycles, who do you suggest does fix it? The choice is rather limited. Ideally, education would solve this problem, but the British chef Jamie Oliver was kicked around when he suggested US schools educate kids on better food. So clearly the schools don't give a crap. If nobody is willing to actually OWN their responsibility, to the point where the nation suffers (loss of productivity = loss of revenue and loss of GDP, loss of mental function = loss of progress and loss of investment), then surely since the Government is for the people and doing nothing is against the people, the Government must step in.

      I believe that it may be too late to avoid some Government intervention, but it should be as limited as possible and to target the root causes. Those root causes include crappy education and parental malpractrice. The former is going to be hard to fix, as Governments routinely treat education as something of a dirty word. The latter is next-to-impossible, as parents generally reserve the right to abuse their kids and resent any restrictions on the kind of abuse they can inflict. Even if these issues could be solved, the existing attitudes at high levels of authority are so perverted and degenerate that they're rarely capable of actually "fixing" anything without making it worse. However, if the options are death-by-fat for an entire nation vs. videogame-lifesupport, the lifesupport makes better sense.

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      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  2. Ban Cracker Jack, too. by GungaDan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!
  3. Power is its own end. by bmajik · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
  4. Re:As a parent of two children... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How did you manage that before it was a law?

  5. Re:As a parent of two children... by Pojut · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So if you figured out a system that worked by yourself...how does this legislation help you in any way?

    --
    Living With a Nerd
  6. Re:As a parent of two children... by SecurityGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.