San Francisco Bans The Happy Meal
The Hamburgler has finally been caught, and put in jail for life.
Well... according to San Franciscan toddlers anyway.
The actual ban basically says that if you're going to sell a toy with a meal, it has to be a healthy meal (roughly translated to "healthier than a McDonald's Happy Meal") based on a specific nutritional guideline.
Um... I understand the idea behind it, but this is going to do one of two things: Kill the entire idea of the Happy Meal (because the toy really sells it anyway) or turn the Happy Meal into something not a lot of kids are going to eat. For one thing, I don't think there is a way to make ANY meal from McDonald's nutritionally sound without scrapping the entire operation. Secondly, even if an entirely different meal was offered for the Happy Meals, including fruits and veggies... let me just stop right there. Because we all know that unless it's fruit ice cream or fried veggies, most American kids aren't going to want it.
And on top of it all, toddlers aren't driving Range Rovers to the drive through and ordering Happy Meals. Fast food is a matter of convenience for most parents and they're just going to serve their kid something equally unhealthy in those scenarios anyway.
I'm interested to see what McDonald's and any other places that serve toys with meals in San Francisco does.
Anyway, underneath all this, I'm slightly disappointed that we're basically being told what we can and can't let our kids eat, but I do see the benefit of it, especially in the U.S. It just conflicts with me a little.