Last year the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a law that would require restaurants serving children’s meals to meet specific nutritional standards if they also contain free toys. The law is an attempt to promote healthier options for kids who are increasingly suffering from obesity and diabetes due to poor diets, often provided by fast food chains like McDonald’s.
The law is set to take effect Thursday, December 1. However, the McDonald’s franchise operators in the city have decided to skirt the law rather than comply with it. That news was met with glee by Fox Nation.
The first problem with the Fox Nation headline, “McDonald’s Outsmarts San Francisco on Happy Meal Ban,” is that there never was a Happy Meal ban. The Fox Nationalists typically engaged in dishonest hyperbole. All restaurants are permitted under the law to serve the very same children’s fare they have served all along. They merely could not use free toys as enticements to impressionable kids. Studies have proven the harmful effect of advertising and promotional giveaways on children. The Stanford University School of Medicine conducted research that found that “advertising literally brainwashes young children into a baseless preference for certain food products.”
In order to comply with the new law’s criteria, restaurants were asked to reduce the fat, salt and sugar in children’s meals and offer more fruits and vegetables. But rather than do the responsible thing by modifying the content of their so-called Happy Meals, the McDonald’s proprietors chose to make customers pay an extra 10 cents for the toy, thus adhering to the stipulation that the toys not be included for free. That is a demonstration of their commitment to profit over the health and well-being of their customers. They say that the extra ten cents will be used to help build a new Ronald McDonald House to temporarily house families with sick children. And, conveniently, their practices will insure a steady supply of sick children to populate the new facility.
Despite the intransigence of the local SF franchises, the national office of McDonald’s has already announced plans to reduce the portion size of French fries and add apple slices to its children’s meals. This news might cause Fox to withhold their support for McDonald’s. That would be more in line with their past. A couple of years ago McDonald’s launched a web site to serve the African American community. The onslaught of vile, racist comments that ensued from the Fox Nationalists was repulsive in the extreme.
Once again, Fox is on the wrong side of reality, decency, and common sense. They unabashedly lie to their audience while championing corporate disrespect for the public. It is just this sort of ill behavior that has caused me to ask: What’s the difference between Fox News and McDonald’s? One sells cheap crap with lots of filler & seasoning to masses with no taste. The other is a fast food restaurant.
