"Put down the toy and back awaaaaay from the Happy Meal"

[Stinky The Clown]

This oughtta piss off that clown, Ronald

Photo Credit: Jeff Cronin
CSPI will sue McDonald's if it continues to use toys
to market directly to small children.


CSPI to Sue McDonald's If It Continues Using Toys to Market Junk Food to Children

Using Toys to Promote “Happy Meals” Is Unfair, Deceptive & Illegal, Group Says, Citing State Laws

June 22, 2010

WASHINGTON—Tell it to the judge, Ronald: A nutrition watchdog group will sue McDonald’s if the fast-food chain continues to use toys to promote Happy Meals. According to the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, using toys to lure small children into McDonald’s is unfair and deceptive marketing and is illegal under various state consumer protection laws. CSPI today served McDonald’s a notice of its intent to sue, fulfilling a legal requirement of several states in which CSPI might bring the lawsuit.

“McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children,” said CSPI litigation director Stephen Gardner. “McDonald’s use of toys undercuts parental authority and exploits young children’s developmental immaturity—all this to induce children to prefer foods that may harm their health. It’s a creepy and predatory practice that warrants an injunction.”

McDonald’s is currently offering children toys related to Dreamworks’ latest Shrek movie. (CSPI’s action is unrelated to the recent recall of McDonald’s Shrek drinking glasses contaminated with the toxic heavy metal cadmium.) While Shrek may appear on packaging for low-fat milk and Apple Dippers, when children or parents order Happy Meals they are given French fries 93 percent of the time, according to a CSPI study.

In 2007, McDonald’s made a pledge to an industry-funded self-regulatory group not to advertise to children meals that have more than 600 calories and no more than certain percentages of fat and sugar. Thus, the brief glimpses of actual food in McDonald’s youth-directed advertising, show Apple Dippers and low-fat milk as part of either a 4-piece Chicken McNuggets Happy Meal or a Hamburger Happy Meal. But toys, a powerful temptation for kids, are included with all Happy Meals, regardless of nutrition.

>snip<

More here: http://cspinet.org/new/201006221.html

[BrklynLiberal]

1. heard this onthe radio earlier.....tsk tsk tsk..Poor widdle MacDonald's

[MadHound]

2. Except it is the parents who are actually buying the Happy Meals,

When did they abdicate their responsibility.

Oh, and if they're going to hold McDonalds to this sort of standard, then they need to go after cereal manufacturers, and the makers of bubble gum, along with a number of others.

What are they offering the parents to entice them into buying the Happy Meal, booze and hookers? C'mon, parental responsibility has to start somewhere, and one would think that it would apply to the most basic things, like what their kids eat.

[JuniperLea]

4. K&R your post!

Exactomundo!!!

Parents began negotiating with their kids a long time ago... and the kids are now far better at it than their parents... so naturally the parents have to seek justice outside the parental relationship they have failed.

[phantom power]

8. I agree with you. I don't think McDonalds is doing anything wrong here.

I see no problem at all with promotional gimmicks, which is what happy meals and their toys are.


Which is not to say that promotional gimmicks don't annoy me, or that I don't ever become exhausted playing Bad Cop with my 6-year-old, but... damn. Welcome to parenthood.

:shrug:

[SunnySong]

3. Toys are evil as is fun thats why we have drug laws... its for your own good.

Obviously you don't know how to raise your own children. We are here to protect you for yourselves. We know what is best for you... your welcome.

[RC]

5. Anyone ever sue Cracker Jack because they had toys in their boxes?

What's the difference?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. I sued Marvel Comics.

They included stories about the adventures of superheroes in order to trick me into reading their magazines of whooppee cushion and sea monkey advertisements.

Comic tales undermine my authority as a parent and are illegal in several states.

[Riftaxe]

10. Not only that but those X-ray glasses they advertised

never worked as described!! :cry:

[whyverne]

6. I miss the Happy Meals days.

Now he's a carping teen, as big as me. Sigh.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. That's their idea of public interest, is it?

Huh.