McDonald's CEO: Happy Meal Toys Are Here to Stay

McDonald's CEO: Happy Meal Toys Are Here to Stay

shine.yahoo.com

Last month The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) sent a letter to McDonald's threatening to sue if the company didn’t stop using toys to market Happy Meals to kids.
Now, McDonald's is defending its Happy Meals as a "fun treat with right-sized, quality food choices," and says its toys are staying put. (And it has some choice words for the consumer watchdog group.)
More from The Stir: Yelling At Your Baby Makes You a Bad Mom
The original CSPI letter was harshly critical of the nutritional value of Happy Meals -- claiming that not only do they cause kids to develop lifelo

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I hope this is in the right spot.
The CEO of Mcdonalds has responded and I do believe it is one that should make all people stop and think. In short he is stating that it is the repsonsibility of the parents to determine what a child eats, how much activity a child gets and not the stores. I also believe, that he is stating that it should not be the governments job to regulate what we the people choose to and not to eat.

shine.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

corporations over humans, thats everything I need to say

at least sanity prevailed here..

lesson to my children.. "if they have to give a toy to attract you to their food,, then maybe its not that good"

but its tatses good and has a toy!!

Congrats to the CEO of McDonald's for standing up to these idiots.

I take my kid to McDonalds to get a Happy Meal and these idiots want to take the toy away? Hitler would be proud!

How is taking away toys from children in the Public Interest anyway?

I don't know about you guys, but I know when I was little I loved getting a kids meal and seeing what little piece of plastic crap I got to play with next. I for one, would like my kids to have plastic crap from Mickey D's to play with if I ever take them to eat there.

Originally posted by Faiol
corporations over humans, thats everything I need to say

No.

That is not the issue here.

The issue is this.

Do we need more government regulations?

Do you need the CSPI telling YOU how to live your life?

Do you need them to tell you what you can/cannot buy your child?

Do you need yet more mommy/daddy gov't running your life?

This crap has got to stop. I don't want more government!

Let McD's sell their happy meals. Stop letting them police what other people eat.

See, the media brainwashes people to think that "more government regulations and rules = good thing" but in reality it makes our lives a living hell when there is 500,000 laws you are suppose to follow.

Let us be Free and Responsible adults. Let us make our own choices of what to eat or feed our children.

And let us mind our own business.

This CSPI food nazi stuff has made me sicker than eating McD's food! It's that bad.

Parents who don't want their kids to eat at McDonald's shouldn't take their kids to McDonald's.... it's not that hard.

Threaten to sue? As if freedom of choice is not an option for anyone these days.
Its fast food for crying out loud. We KNOW its not good for us. They would have us believe that by putting a toy with a meal is gonna brainwash us into bringing our kids there...Well what about cereal that puts prizes in their boxes? or in cracker jack boxes?
Its clever marketing but thats the goal of every corporation, to make more money, and you have the choice, to not spend your money there. Whos in charge you or your kids? seriously..

I dislike McD's as much as anyone else does.

But I am 100% behind the CEO and his statements on this issue.

Promoting the responsibility of parents is one of the most important issues we can get behind these days.

You guys/gals really need to check out this Penn and Teller episode about Fast Food. It's excellent I enjoyed it a lot.

Viewer Discretion advised.





This episode talks about THIS exact issue in depth. Please take 30minutes to watch it. Really funny too (as always).

Freedom is under attack by the Food Nazis!

The CEO of Carl's Jr makes some really great points in this video about this exact issue...

Originally posted by Faiol
corporations over humans, thats everything I need to say

Indeed it is a case of whether the right exists to challenge a corporations' operations. Yes the parent's are the ultimate stewards in the scenario; and yes being a steward means teaching your children how to live in the world we have created for them.

It appears, now that children can never be too young to be targeted by the marketing industry, it is now true that children can never be too young to be taught how not to be a consumerist tool.

Apparently, McDonald's marketeers and strategists are very capable of using the media and couching their perspective in such a a way as to cast doubt on the parenting skills of any who dare contest their business model. Hopefully most of us know damn well what the message is supposed to be.

As a parent, I reserve the right to challenge any industry standard, any corporate practice, or government agenda; in fact as a parent, I will challenge anything, that I believe is a general threat to the well being of my posterity.

As a "corporate citizen" I fully expect them to comply with the general wisdom regarding the appropriate way to nurture future generations. After all, they have to live in this world, don't they? We have known since long ago that children are too unsophisticated and vulnerable to allow the science of Madison Avenue marketing to entice them into becoming consumer whores. Many complacently overlooked the fact that know our children are being hooked three-ways-to-Sunday via movie/toys/meals/music/celebrity-worship media tactics while that was once strictly regulated, and in some cases, illegal as some may remember.

"Corporate America" seems to feel that "the parents problem" in other words; an externality. The corporations have benefited greatly from their citizenship status in the country, at what point does the social responsibility part of citizenship come in?

Can we ask them not to treat, and even encourage our children like suckers, hot after plastic and media flash? Or would that be a corporate outrage?

This news is bitter sweet to me. Part of me sad, part of me glad.

Basically McDonald's restaurant is defending their business model called capitalism. Competition in capitalism is perfect in my understanding of life. Toys make profit. So this part makes me glad.

However.

I can not speak for others, but you might have seen this before. You will have a mom, in a SUV, or a Van, in the drive through, and she wants to get toys for ALL of her kids. With a very stern voice she gives exact instructions to the window person then the window person does not understand which exact girl boy or version of toy each one wants then the mother gets mad and they recite the whole thing over again.
Meanwhile I am waiting patiently for my turn to order. Almost 2 minutes go by and then they work out the toy schedule for each kid and she moves to the second window. And then I can move forward and order my food. Toys made me wait a 2 minute lifetime !

That part makes me sad.

However, I am working on this, because even food can be fast over 2 minutes and I am a bit neurotic about it at times.

I would NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER feed my kid stuff out of a cesspool, or from mcdonalds. I would dearly love my kids, sorry to see you people dont care about your kids health but damn! if someone wants to take away a shady marketing campaign by a company that abuses, brutally slaughters and mains its livestock, (ever see those little chickens in the factories get caught in the gears and tossed if they dont make the grade, left to die on the floor, anyone ever see those livestock practices, go watch some on youtube.), cuts down rain forest to make room for more livestock torture houses. and who is involved in employing child labor abroad to make those cheap plastic toys which choke the environment your kids will have to live in not to mention the litter that surrounds the direct environment around such "restaurants." if you wanna feed your kids chicken nuggets that have the same ingredient as silly puddy and applaud their every win, peh go right ahead.

When I was a kid (Back in the 80's) My parents rarely if ever brought me to McDonalds or any fast food for that matter, but when we did go , getting a happy meal was awesome! My son is 3 and I think we've gone to Micky D's twice this year and I don't really see a problem with it , my sister in law on the other hand feeds her kid garbage several times a week , Fast food is fine in moderation (once in a blue) but feeding your kid that crap on a daily basis is akin to child abuse imho.

The only toys that ever sucked me in were the teeny beanies. I love the ty beanie babies and they were putting the teenie ones in the happy meal. I purchased the meal and threw it out and kept the teenie beanies. It is the parents responsibility to decide if mcdonalds is something they dont mind putting into their children's bodies. As much as it pains me I agree with the CEO.

Originally posted by VintageEnvy
The only toys that ever sucked me in were the teeny beanies. I love the ty beanie babies and they were putting the teenie ones in the happy meal. I purchased the meal and threw it out and kept the teenie beanies. It is the parents responsibility to decide if mcdonalds is something they dont mind putting into their children's bodies. As much as it pains me I agree with the CEO.

Ugh! I worked for the company when I was 16 when that promotion was going on. Bunch of soccer moms arguing with us when we were in low supply of these. I dont mean to stereotype but I was 16 and I knew no better

reply to post by eyeofthetiger


Although I tend to agree about many of your sentiments, do we the people have the right to tell others what rights they do not have??

If we agree that the government should regulate McD's, than you would probably also agree to the next baby steps to totalitarianism.

Eliminating all fast food places and having 1 government ran restaurant, where only government supplied food etc is provided. This way you will "know it's healthy" hah hah hah.

The other edge of the sword is that we could pass laws forcing every family to have to buy McD's happy meals + toys.

Both edges of the blade called totalitarianism seem to cut pretty badly into our freedom.

Using government as a weapon of regulation is bad. It's negative. It harms human development and growth. It stifles advancement.

What would be positive, is if we all suddenly minded our own business, and stopped caring what other people did so often.

And started voting wisely with our dollars $$$, rather than being dupes and buying the same old crap over and over again.

So to recap, government regulations = bad.

Humans voting corporations into success or bankruptcy with their money more wisely (people actually being responsible for once lol) = good

Originally posted by EyesWideShut
Fast food is fine in moderation (once in a blue) but feeding your kid that crap on a daily basis is akin to child abuse imho.

You are missing the point though imo.

The point is that 70% of the world's children are STARVING to death because of war, famine, poor government, corporate rape, accidents, political strife, squalor, disease etc.

Having this so called "garbage" available to eat, is better than nothing to eat at all!

You realize people in half the third world nations would KILL for a burger right now?? Like actually shoot you with an AK for it. No joke.

We should be thankful we have fake food in the first place lol.

We are so spoiled over here in the west it's funny.

If we have to get rid of MCD's toys because it's "Marketing to children irresponsibly" purely for profit gain.

Than shouldn't we ban all toys because they are totally marketed AT children purely to gain profits?

Hell many of those toys are dangerous. They create injuries often. Sometimes things like the paint or whatever are toxic, etc.

We should just ban all toys.

See how NOT FUN this world will become if we just take this a little bit further???