CSPI's Happy Meal toys lawsuit
So the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a lobbying group that aims to encourage healthy eating -- and for laws to support it -- is suing McDonalds. As background information, the CSPI has lobbied for soda taxes, better disclosure of nutrition information (they were a big part of the push for mandatory trans fat labeling, and laws in some areas requiring restaurants to provide nutrition information, and other things like that.)
Anyway this is kind of old news, since I think they launched the suit a month ago, but they're aiming to force McDonalds to stop giving away toys with Happy Meals. (Santa Clara county, California, has actually passed a law banning toy giveaways with fast food.)
Now, y'all know I'm somewhat leery of government involvement in regulating the nutritional content of foods. But on the other hand, this doesn't get so much at nutritional content but rather at a form of advertisement aimed at children.
And a lot of the McDonalds toys, despite being sort of stupid, are popular collectibles -- they had those mini Beanie-Babies when those were popular, and apparently a line of 101 different dogs as a 101 Dalmations tie-in. They're often tied in with popular kids' movies, and given how big an industry movie merchandising is, it seems fair to speculate that the toys are probably a fair driver for demand for their food.
So what do you guys think about this? I hope they win the lawsuit, personally. It's fair to say that personal responsibility is important -- of course it is -- but looking at figures on overweight in the U.S., it appears we've created a food environment that even most adults aren't capable of resisting. And advertising to kids seems unfair -- how is a five-year-old supposed to understand and resist advertisements? In general I'd like to see a lot of restriction on advertising to children, actually. I think that if kids were a little less motivated to demand fast food, parents might find it easier to get them to eat healthier foods.
I'm somewhat leery, like I mentioned, of the government attempting to interfere too much with nutrition. And that's in no small part because I think their past attempts to do so have sometimes been really counterproductive. But I think it's fair to target some of the more egregiously manipulative industry tactics that lead to consumption of shit food, especially when we're talking about something that targets kids too young to understand and resist their effects.
