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.
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 – I don’t think this is “asking” if it’s written into law.
Another good example of why your beliefs are so dangerous to our freedom – this is perfectly fine with you – dictating how much fat is permitted in fast food. Why don’t you just butt out of everyones lives – bringing attention to the issue is fine, making the nutritional content redily available is fine, stating you can’t put poison in food, great – writing laws dictating fast food nutritional values is bull. If the government dictated how much stuff you can have, would that make you happy? probably not – so get out of everyones lives.
You really need to work on your comprehension skills. The law does NOT dictate the content of food. McDonald’s is permitted to serve exactly what they have always served. The law only addresses marketing to children products that are known to be harmful. If McDonald’s wants to continue the Crappy Meal in its present form, all they need to do is remove the toy or don’t include it for free (which is what they decided to do). The point is to stop enticing kids with bribes to get them to eat unhealthy foods.
Of course, McDonald’s could also change the product so that it didn’t cause serious harm to children, but I guess that is asking too much. In your “free market” Utopia everyone would be eating poisonous crap and breathing toxins so long as the businesses making us sick were also making more profits.
I lost interest but decided to read the response I knew would come – and you didn’t disappoint – of course we would all just love to eat poisonous crap and breath dirty air – that is what all conservatives want – classic leftist reasoning for wanting less government interference (notice i said less – not zero). I don’t think people eat much poison purposefully so I don’t think anyone would be too profitable serving it. How did human kind ever survive without big brother telling us how to live and eat. Of course a parent could always say NO to their kids if they didn’t want them to eat a happy meal or any other food they feel is unhealthy vs. some freedom hating lib telling and everyone else what we can have.
Is it too much to ask one of the biggest corporations in the world to act a little more responsibly in the interest of public health; especially the public health of childeren who can’t make these choices by themselves. Maybe McDonald’s should offer a multi-vitamin pill with their crappy meals for kids instead of a toy or better yet, give them the toy and vitamin pill.
writing LAWS to tell corporations – or anyone else – how to do something isn’t ASKING. Here is one of your statements that are totally laughable and typical of those who want a nanny state :”Is it too much to ask one of the biggest corporations in the world to act a little more responsibly in the interest of public health; especially the public health of childeren who can’t make these choices by themselves”
Childred don’t drive themselves to McDonalds and pull out their wallets to pay for a happy meal – Parents do. Parents have 100% control over the choices their kids make at McDonalds. Get over yourselves.
Current TV did a segment on how Fox News viewers know less about what is actually happening in the world than people who don’t watch the news at all. Check out this link, it is informative and hilarious, and I might add sad but true.
http://current.com/shows/countdown/videos/comedian-christian-finnegan-on-why-watching-no-news-is-better-than-watching-fox-news
Is this really about Fox News or are you ticked off that many people who can an do vote in this country just can’t ever believe what you believe? Maybe you should worry more about your own issues and stop worry if someone who watches fox news is as smart as you.