no more mctoys

last year san fransisco banned mcdonald's from giving out free toys in their happy meals. people say the toys in un-healthy meals gives kids extra incentive to want to eat fast food, which could eventually lead to childhood obesity.

cnn reports that "40% of preschool-aged children ask to go to McDonald's on a weekly basis, and 15% ask on a daily basis. Also, 84% of parents say they've taken their children to eat fast food at least once in the past week."

yeah, i'm pretty sure that isn't because of the toys. do these kids only play with the toy and discard the food? no, they want all of it. cause let's face it, the food tastes pretty damn good.

btw, it's the parents who take their kids, no? because parents decide what to feed their kids. kids can ask for whatever they want, but they don't matter, the parents do. i get that sometimes your kids drive you crazy so you cave in and do what they want, instead of what's good for them. but that's still up to you.

also, "the fast food industry spent $4.2 billion on advertising in 2009." which apparently these kids are falling for since they ask their parents so often to take them. (tho, again, parents don't have to do whatever their kids ask for) so maybe instead of banning the toys, which i know a lot of adults enjoy too, maybe don't let fast food places advertise during kids shows. just like how companies aren't allowed to advertise alcohol or sexy 1-900#s during kids shows. a few counties actually don't allow companies to advertise at all to kids under a certain age.

the ban isn't for every meal offering though. if restaurants want to continue to give away toys, the meal it comes with will need to "contain fewer than 600 calories [drink included], and less than 35% of total calories will come from fat. The meal must contain half a cup of fruit and three-fourths cup of vegetables, and offer less than 640 milligrams of sodium and less than 0.5 milligrams of trans fat."

it'll be interesting to see kids ask for the healthy toy-included meals instead of the regular now toy-free happy meals.

happy meal updated. no word about those toys tho.