A California mother attempted suing McDonald’s because she claims that the fast food giant used toys to market its meals to children. She says that her daughter loves to eat at McDonald’s because of the toy that she receives with her meal. The court dropped the law suit because she hadn’t suffered any financial damage. The CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest) backed up the mother and said “Using toys, of all things, to lure young children to fast-food meals is not responsible corporate behavior. It's a predatory practice that undermines parents, causes rifts in families, and harms kids' health.”
McDonald’s Happy Meal items have changed over the years,
now when you order a Happy Meal you have a choice of juice, 1% milk, chocolate milk and it comes with apple slices. One thing has stayed the same, the toys. McDonald’s uses popular toys like Lego, Hot Wheels, Barbie, Beanie Babies and other popular toys to get the children parents to buy them a Happy Meal. If the toy was popular, the kid is going to get his parent to buy many Happy Meals to complete his collection. McDonalds will sometimes have small toys and if you collect all of the parts you will have one big toy. I remember McDonalds had Happy Meal toys for inspector gadget and each body part of inspector was a toy. If you collected all of the pieces you would have a complete Inspector Gadget action figure. I would beg my mom to go to McDonald’s daily so I could complete Inspector Gadget, a lot of Happy Meals later I complete Inspector Gadget. McDonald’s in the United Kingdom started handing out children books to promote childhood education and for the parents to read the story and spend time with their kids. McDonald’s Happy Meal is the most popular kid’s menu item in the whole world!
I think this is one of the reasons why today’s children are obese because they get their parents to take them to McDonald’s to get a cheap toy that they will probably play with for a few hours. McDonald’s now include healthier items for the Happy Meals but you will still receive cheap toy. They also pay movie stars and athletes to promote the new toy. How do you feel about McDonald’s Happy Meals?
McDonalds and other fast food restaurants are defiantly contributing to obesity around the world. Would it change the situation if parents didn't take their kids to get fast food on a regular basis. If kids don't get use to eating fast food, then they wont be as disappointed if mom or dad says no. Yes, kids may beg to get their happy meal but there are other ways to settle a kids need without adding bad food into the situation. Targeting kids, yes is wrong but I feel that parents should take a little more responsibly and stop trying to blame other people. Parents and family can have some of the biggest influences on children, even bigger than the media.
ReplyDeleteI definitely remember collecting the Inspector Gadget toys, as well as the Power Ranger ones. It's quite clever how they make toys of popular figures on children's television, but it's wrong how long it's taken them to finally serve somewhat healthy food with the Happy Meal. I agree with Pjrobear, while it's wrong that McDonald's serves fattening foods to children, it's also the responsibility of the parents to choose what their child eats. I feel as though it's become a habit for most American's to stop at some fast food restaurant because they don't feel like cooking a meal at home. I know I'm guilty of it myself, but if you're a parent and your kids see that you stop at McDonald's quite often, they'll develop that habit themselves. Which could very well lead to obesity later in life.
ReplyDeleteI dont blame the entreprenuers of the macdonald franchise for promoting toys for kids in order to make the parents come in and purchase more and more kids meal for thier kids. Its a brilliant idea from the business prospective but some parents think its a way of making their kids to fall in love with the mcdonalds menu. From a parents point of view, its a trick to make them spend money at mcdonalds but its mainly the kids that beg and cry for the cool toys that mcdonald offers in their kids menu. If parents had more controll off their kids making choices then all things equall. Parents dont have to buy mcdonalds every day and Mcdonalds will keep on coming up with new ideas on how to attract new customers.
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