No more "Happy Meals"?

Alright, I am sure that all of you have eaten a McDonald's Happy Meal at least once in your life! One of the main reasons that kids make their parents order a Happy Meal is (not because of those yummy McNuggets but) for those appealing toys!

So to sum things up:
Kids + More Happy Meals = Childhood Obesity

"A few more Happy Meals and then I will have the whole collections of these limited edition toys!"

However, San Francisco proposed a law on Tuesday, August 10 2010, to BAN McDonald's Happy Meals! (Oh nooooo! -Sad Ronald ):) This law bans all foods that contain too much fat, sugar or salt. Santa Clara earlier this year passed a similar law but it only targeted a handful of restaurants and most of them were unincorporated (Family owned). However, SF is taking it to the next step! Don't be surprised if all fast food joints (Burger King, Jack in the Box...) will soon suffer bans of their own. SF Board of Supervisors are demanding for more fruit and vegetable in meals! "Meals must include at least a half-cup of fruit and three-quarters of a cup of vegetables."

The new fries...? Yummy.

This article interested me because I too was once McDonald Toy grabber and a Happy Meal gobbler. It also got me thinking: "Do they have the right to intrude our eating habits?" I understand they are not purposely taking away toys from Happy Meals to purposely anger kids and parents (Kids throwing tantrums in public = angry parents -> personal experience!). I believe that they are doing this with good intentions. They want a healthier SF. As Rajiv Bhatia, director of occupational and environmental health for the San Francisco Department of Public Health said, "This is not an anti-toy ordinance; this is a pro-healthy-meal ordinance." What do you think? Should the government have the final say of what we want to eat?

Want to read more?! Here's the link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/08/11/MNJG1ES4M2.DTL#ixzz0wK3koHGE



Robin Kuang