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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."

13 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.

      --
      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)
    3. Re:I swear.... by jemenake · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      And Supervisor Donald Gage agrees with you. The problem is, we've tried that for decades and it isn't working. The "personal responsibility" people stamp their feet and complain "It's the parents' responsibility! It's the parents' responsibility! (stamp, stamp, stamp...)". Hey, why don't you stamp your feet a little harder? Maybe, then, all of those parents will suddenly take up an interest in pediatric nutrition.

      Kids shouldn't have a say. If the parents are doing their jobs, it won't matter who the restaurants prey upon.

      "(stamp, stamp, stamp!) Kids shouldn't... they shouldn't. Shouldn't, shouldn't, shouldn't!". Yeah, but you know what? They do. In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice but, in practice, there is. You can yell and complain about responsibility and the nanny state and all that jazz, but, ultimately, it fails to actually fix the problem. So, the county supervisors have decided to try this. And I think you have to admit that, regardless of whether you think that the county should have passed this ordinance, the restaurants are throwing the toys in there to help peddle a product which should probably be peddled on their merits of its nutrition.

      This issue reminds me of the Simpsons episiode with "Mt. Splashmore", where a commercial for the water park teaches the kids the "Take me to Mt. Splashmore" song and then instructs the kids to go sing it to their parents over and over again. Or, in "The Corporation", I think it was, where the market research lady interviewed parents about their nagging children. The parents thought it was research into how to get kids to nag less but it was really studying how to get the kids to nag their parents more effectively so that the parents would cave in and buy more often. I think you're naive if you don't think these companies aren't pouring millions of dollars into ways of getting around this "personal responsibility" firewall, and the toys are just one part of their arsenal.

      For example, even when kids don't really have a say, they do. You even admit "The toy is just a bonus to keep our child busy long enough so we can finish our meals with some level of peace.". So, the toy does help bring you in to that particular restaurant chain. Besides, I can use the "parental responsibility" argument on you. I know a couple that actually takes parenting seriously. When we all go out to dinner with their kid, their kid finishes first, and then knows to sit there, quietly, while we all chat a while. She knows that, if she starts getting fidgety or rambunctious, things are going to turn out worse for her in the long run. So, we can always finish our meals in peace... toy or no toy. But then, that's because they feel that they should be responsible parents.

  2. So wait... by Pojut · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...they ban the toys, but keep the crap food? Don't get me wrong, I think it's the responsability of parents to keep track of what their kids ingest, not the governement's...but I still can't help but be reminded of our good friend George Carlin:

    "...now they're banning toy guns, AND THEY'RE GONNA KEEP THE FUCKIN' REAL ONES!"

    --
    Living With a Nerd
  3. 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!
  4. That sucks by JoeWalsh · · Score: 5, Funny

    If we can't bribe our children to eat poison, the terrorists have won!

  5. 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.
  6. As a parent of two children... by pnuema · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...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.

    1. Re:As a parent of two children... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How did you manage that before it was a law?

    2. 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
    3. 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.

    4. Re:As a parent of two children... by Enderandrew · · Score: 5, Informative

      As a parental rule, it is good.

      As legislation, it is terible.

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