Posted on 05/25/2013 5:12:22 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Children are impressionable, and McDonald’s has managed, in the majority of cases, to make children prefer McDonald’s over all other fast food choices. Some people have decided that McDonald’s marketing is to blame for the fact that kids eat French fries and not fruits and veggies. Or, at least, the claim to believe McDonald’s possesses such awesome powers. And they even pretend that they think children are somehow wise leaders in society. Thus, from MSNBC and Morning Joe:
“Nine-year-old Hannah Robertson doesn’t want a Happy Meal. She wants a healthy meal. And she’s not shy about saying it: Hannah took her pitch straight to the boss, telling McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson during the annual shareholder’s meeting that targeting kids with unhealthy food isn’t fair.”
Targeting—as if our children’s mouths are all forced open against their will and Ronald McDonald is out there with a fry gun shooting potatoes into their stuck-open mouths. She goes further, and told the CEO of McDonald’s, “Something I don’t think it’s fair when big companies try to trick kids into eating food that isn’t good for them by using toys and cartoon characters.”
It doesn’t work that way. If you put all of the clown’s power behind the sale of broccoli or spinach, he would be let go within weeks. Contrary to what Hannah Robertson has been led to believe, the children aren’t tricked at all. If you tried to make them eat fruits and vegetables, they wouldn’t be enthusiastic and they’d eventually become downright hostile to McDonald’s “healthy” food. No matter how big the company, or how many toys they used as bribes, or how many cartoon characters they used, children cannot be persuaded to eat butter beans.
If anyone really has the power to “trick” a kid, it is probably the child’s own parent. In fact, Hannah’s mother just happens to be “a kid’s nutritional advocate.” So even though USA Today and Morning Joe both shamelessly use a child to sell an anti-McDonald’s message, they know that nothing of the kind ever happened. Hannah’s mom just exploited her daughter for the sake of a message.
Was the message worth it? I doubt it. Fruits are sugary. The CEO boasted that they now serve low-fat chocolate milk, but such milk makes up for the loss of fat by using more carbohydrates, which many believe are much worse than fat. The idea that fat in food becomes fat in our bodies is arguably a junk-science myth. If so, switching to fat-free, which is heavier in carbs, is an unhealthy move.
But even unhealthier is this ridiculous belief that corporations have the power to make people do things they don’t want to do. McDonald’s may have managed to make children prefer them to Burger King or Wendy’s, but that doesn’t mean they can control children’s real food preferences. The entire pretense is simply propaganda for the idea that children’s food preferences can be controlled by the will of others.
That ridiculous claim in turn provides justification for all the Mayor Bloombergs of the world who claim that the government is supposed to control what people eat for their own good.
No one is forced to eat it. That only happens in government schools.
McDonald’s also includes apple slices in their Happy Meals to satisfy the food Nazis. On the few occasions that we go to McDonald’s and order a Happy Meal for our 7yo, guess what is left over untouched?
Thanks for the ping!
New chicken wraps are excellent and not that many calories for what is a full meal; 440-600.
Kids have these things called parents. Parents should provide healthy meals for their kids and resist the kids desires for too much crap.
Instead, they give in to the kids and let them eat garbage.
I know as a kid, 40 years ago, all I wanted was milkshakes, orange soda and hamburgers. My mom didn’t let me eat what I wanted because I was a kid. It didn’t seem fair at the time, but in hindsight, she was right.
It is child abuse to not make little and big kids REAL fried chicken.
Old Bay Seasoning makes tasty fried chicken.
No child will eat any thing they don’t like, having raised 3 boys I can testify to that. So they went hungry a few times, cured it. You ate what was put on the table or went hungry, single divorced working mom’s don’t have zillions to cater to the ‘ I want’s of kids’.
No one forces a child to go into McD’s it takes a lazy in a hurry parent to take them there and make bad choices. The kids meal is about 350 calories with out the soda or the desert. The human body needs protein and carbs, control the portion size to keep the weight off. This was before the new changes of adding high sugar apples that a diabetic cannot eat that much of.
I pitch half the bun if I get on saves on the carbs and calories.
Have you seen the welfare queens on food stamps in the check out line...fat, with fat kids, baskets full of chips, cookies, soft drinks, koolaid koolers, energy, sports drinks, candy, cake, etc. very little you could call decent food unless it comes out of a can and ravioli in a can is not decent food. PB & J is a better choice.
I tried one the other day because Micky D’s sent me a $2 Coupon to buy one. It was delicious.
(of course I had to put some Ranch Dressing on it so it would be super delicious)
LOL
Yeah, my dog eats the same thing every day...loves it. When I feed him in the morning, he acts like he hasn't eaten in a week.
I did about the same thing with mine, baby food cost more, I am a scratch cook, who ever said retirees actually retire don’t think straight, once they find out you are retired, they find all kinds of free work that needs doing for you to do. Like being a full time baby sitter, unpaid of course. Thankfully mine all are in different areas of the country, and I can just go visit and spoil a little, but not at fast food joints.
This also applies to fat adults control portion size.......and eat only when your stomach is growling, not by the clock. I weigh 108 at 5’, and 110 is considered a warning of being obese. LOL I wear a size 6 jean and that is a tad to loose. One size fits all weight charts are a joke, they do not take into account muscle or bone structure. Not all of us are skimpy muscled or small boned. A weight lifter would fit their obese level as they have large muscles and that makes them over weight on those STUPID charts.
When i was little mom would take to McDonalds after yearly physical after the shot the doctor gave me she always tell me McDonald is not our second kichen I get it
You got too many parents who are in hurry they go to McDonald shut up jr on way home from soccer game
They may be lazy or too indiffernet fix their kid some dinner since they coming home at 7pm or 8pm
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