McDonald's

I was reading CNN earlier today and saw this headline “McDonald's warned: Drop the toys or get sued.” Curious, I read the article. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is the group behind the lawsuit. My first reaction was, “Who the bleep are these guys and why are they trying to ruin something fun?” What’s the harm of a toy in a Happy Meal? The toys are what make a Happy Meal happy.

Then I thought about it. We rarely go to McDonald’s. Why? The food is not healthy. And we certainly don’t need another plastic, cheap toy around the house. The landfills certainly do not need another broken plastic toy.

Julie and I went to McDonald’s on the last day of school. I told I would take her out for lunch and asked her where she wanted to go. She wanted McDonald’s “because we haven’t been there in a long time.” I explained that it would be crowded and gave her several other, healthier alternatives, but no, she really wanted to go. So we went and we beat the crowd of all the other parents and kids who had the same idea. She got a Puss In Boots digital clock as a toy and she has been driving me crazy ever since with announcing what time it is every 5 minutes. At least it is a somewhat practical toy.

What did she have to eat? McNuggets, French fries, chocolate milk (total of 580 calories). Not the best nutritional lunch, to say the least.

I went to CSPI’s website and I read the letter of intent to sue that was sent to McDonald’s. It was very eye-opening. Here is an excerpt: “Considering that a reasonable lunch for a young child would contain no more than 430 calories (one third of the 1,300 calories that is the recommended daily intake for children 4 to 8 years old), not a single Happy Meal meets that target. The average of all 24 meals is 26 percent higher in calories than a reasonable lunch.”

They went on to say: “McDonald’s practices are predatory and wrong. They are also illegal, because marketing to kids under eight is (1) inherently deceptive, because young kids are not developmentally advanced enough to understand the persuasive intent of marketing;8 and (2) unfair to parents, because marketing to children undermines parental authority and interferes with their ability to raise healthy children.”

Will CSPI be successful in their lawsuit? I don’t know. I do know that we need to do better by our children. We need to help them to make the most of this land of opportunity. We don’t need cheap plastic toys filling our land and oceans. We don’t need high calorie, low-nutritional food expanding our waists.

Will I take Julie to McDonald’s ever again? Probably. But what was once a rare occurrence will become even rarer. And when she asks “why can’t we go to McDonald’s”, I’ll let her know where I stand. The food is bad for us. The toys are junky and bad for the environment.






8 Institute of Medicine, Food Marketing to Children: Threat or Opportunity? (2006); Kunkel et al.,
Psychological Issues in the Increasing Commercialization of Childhood: Report of the APA Task Force on Advertising and Children (2004).