McDonalds spent over half a billion US dollars in 2006 on advertising

About time! Finally legal action is being threatened against the worlds biggest restaurant, McDonalds to stop their campaign to get very young children to eat their unhealthy meals.  Michael Jacobson who is the director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said that McDonalds must stop using Happy Meal toys to get children to go to its restaurants and said that they would sue them if they didn’t stop doing this in 30 days.

Mr. Jacobson said that it wasn’t fair on either the children or their parents that adverts were being targeted at children who had no idea of concept of healthy eating. Parents who did not allow their children to go to McDonalds were perceived by their children as being mean and had to put up with pleading and nagging.

McDonalds who spent over half a billion US dollars in 2006 on advertising and promotional toys to get children to go to their restaurants have been accused of trying to get children to learn unhealthy eating habits which have been proven to be difficult to break. The fact is if children develop a taste for McDonalds hamburgers and chips when they are young it makes their weight loss efforts as they grow up more difficult. Stephen Gardner, the litigation director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest described McDonalds promotion as they towards children “creepy and predatory practice”.

It is this sort of action which is needed if America is serious about controlling their obesity epidemic. McDonalds and other fast food restaurants are costing the nation millions in future health care costs and are creating a generation of children who will suffer from obesity related disease and possibly die younger than their parents as a result. McDonalds spokesman William Whitman said that getting a free toy was just part of the “fun, family experience at McDonalds” when in fact it is a carefully calculated promotional tool which pays big dividends in the future.

Many people argue that the state has no right to intervene in what people eat, but if the state and the taxpayer ultimately end up paying for their health care costs surely they should be allowed to have a say!

At Ukmedix News we feel that it should be illegal for any food advertising to be directed at children and especially the sort of advertising which is likely to give them future obesity problems.