Happy Meal Toy Ban Faces Vote in Calif. County

(CBS)  A Silicon Valley lawmaker's proposal to ban the decades-old practice of adding toys to fast food meals for kids would make McDonald's Happy Meals - and its counterparts at competing eateries - a thing of the past.

Unless, of course, if parents drive their children to a McDonald's in a neighboring northern California county.

The measure faces a vote in the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors Tuesday, which aims to prevent restaurants from adding toys to meals with more than 485 calories, more than 600 milligrams of salt or high sugar or fat levels, the Los Angeles Times reports.

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County Supervisor Ken Yeager, who is the board's president, proposed the measure. The toys add to childhood obesity because they encourage children to eat food that's bad for them, he said.

"What we need to understand is that these fast-food restaurants are spending hundreds of millions of dollars - they know exactly what they're doing by using these toys, cartoon toys, toys that are associated with movies - to try to entice the children to come in and have the meal," Yeager told CBS News Station KPIX-TV in San Francisco when he proposed the measure March 23.

Mother Deborah Dini told KPIX-TV that taking toys out of fast-food meals won't discourage parents from taking their kids to fast-food restaurants.

"They'll still take their kids to the drive-thru and fast food because it's easy and it's fast," Dini said.

"People ask why I want to take toys out of the hands of children," Yeager told the Times. "But we now know that 70 percent of the kids that are overweight or obese will be overweight or obese as adults. Why would we want to burden anybody with a lifetime of chronic illness?"

McDonald's wouldn't comment on Yeager's proposal. The California Restaurant Association opposes the ban and said their toys shouldn't carry the full weight of responsibility for the country's problem with childhood obesity.

If Yeager "wants to take away the toys that are making kids fat, take away Xboxes, take away PlayStations, take away flat-screen TVs," association spokesman Daniel Conway told the newspaper.

McDonald's started selling Happy Meals in the 1970s, and the Times reported a reaction from Bob Bernstein, the Kansas City, Mo., advertising executive who helped create them. He told the newspaper the meals were only supposed to give something to the kids.

"To make a child happy and to not cost Mom any additional money - that was the original idea," Bernstein told the Times. "The toy was not the reigning reason for the child to order the Happy Meal."

Local Video from CBS 5 in San Francisco

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[Pibbles]

Oh please, people, put the blame where it belongs...on the parents! If your kids are fat it is most likely due to a lack of guidance by the PARENTS!!! Really, how many kids are eating at McD's every day or even week? A once in awhile treat doesn't cause obesity; being fed large portions of unhealthy food on a daily basis at home and at school combined a lack of exercise does. It's the parents' fault. This is as stupid as blaming dogs for killing children, when the real cause is because parents NEGLECTED their very young children by alolowing to roam around unsupervised. If you're too lazy to properly feed and supervise your children, don't have them!

[Pibbles]

Oh please, people, put the blame where it belongs...on the parents! If your kids are fat it is most likely due to a lack of guidance by the PARENTS!!! Really, how many kids are eating at McD's every day or even week? A once in awhile treat doesn't cause obesity; being fed large portions of unhealthy food on a daily basis at home and at school combined a lack of exercise does. It's the parents' fault. This is as stupid as blaming dogs for killing children, when the real cause is because parents NEGLECTED their very young children by alolowing to roam around unsupervised. If you're too lazy to properly feed and supervise your children, don't have them!

[8CaliGirl]

Once again the government has to stick its nose in our business. Sigh. In the article it states that if the happy meals are over 485 calories or have more than 600 milligrams of salt or high sugar or fat levels then then they should not be allowed to place toys in them. Where the heck does this idiot get off? The happy meal now offers different options for parents then can get low fat milk or apple juice instead of soda and apple pieces instead of fries. So let's say a parent rolls up to the drive thru and has one child that likes milk and apples and another that likes fries and soda --- one will get a toy and the other won't? Wow - like that's not gonna cause a back seat ruckus. The toys are not adding to the obesity of America's children, poor diet and poor choices regarding extra curricular activities are. Parents don't typically buy happy meals everyday. The food children get at school and home (which doesn't ALL come with toys) is the primary diet source for obese children. Soda, sugary juice boxes, chips, hot dogs, frozen dinners, cookies, etc, etc. So let's not dump the blame on Mickie D's.

[riphillips]

Santa Clara CO - You have it backwards. If you want to encourage healthy eating, then focus on the food in the school lunch rooms, which kids are exposed to every day...not the kids meals, which is not usually an every day thing for all kids. Watch Jamie Oliver's show and try investing in something that will work long term. The toy isn't the issue, its the fact that kids aren't exposed to enough variety. If parents also knew more about preparing healthy food, quicker, they might make better choices when in a time crunch...

[showmagician70]

I am a Navy Retired vet of 21 years fighting for th right to our freedoms. Where does this crap end? This is a parents choice to allow such choices and to blame the fast food industry is just silly. This is by far a parental problem. Very few children have the ability to take them selves to a fast food establishment and purchase the food on their own. Oh and if we are going to start the ban on what makes us fat let's not leave out Dairy Queen, Bascin Robins, oh and do not forget school lunches. The most fatty foods in the world are served at school. Just go and sit down with your kids one day and you will be very surprised at the meal that is served. Legislation is stepping into places they do not belong and they need to step on out. Are they forgetting that some of these restuarants are also in operation over seas. Some of these countries do not have a fat kid issue and what do they say to that. WELCOME TO REALLITY FAT AMERICA.

[Banitall]

Great!!!!! Can we also BAN irresponsible and lazy parents? Ban X box and all computer games? Oh wait...I'm sorry Mommy isn't lazy she is just to busy with work...right? So that she can drive her new car and live in her new house and Mommy and Daddy can have all of there toys and vacations and spa treatments. Come on let's all wake up "NOW" or else when you finally do come out of your Happy Meal induced haze everything will be BANNED. I grew up in the 70's and they had toys back then....remember the Jack in the Box characters? I wasn't obese...my friends weren't obese. Because my parents told me to go out and play and use my imagination and ride my bike. That's the difference. We ate home cooked meals and used fast food as a break from the norm a treat we didn't eat it 3 times a day and that's what's happening now. Americans are raising spoiled and lazy little kids that only want to eat crap and that is because it what was easy to shove in front of them on the way to day care. And we wonder why we are falling to the bottom of the pile as far as the world is concerned.

[rf35]

County Supervisor Ken Yeager...The toys add to childhood obesity because they encourage children to eat food that's bad for them, he said.

Yes, I see little kids lined up all the time to hand over their hard-earned money for Happy Meals.

GET REAL!! The kids don't have jack squat to do with this problem. The parents buy the food! Causing (or allowing) one's child to become obese should be grounds for charging parents with child abuse! What the child eats is the choice of the parents. All this does is drive the parents to order the child a "value meal" instead.

[Crush1800]

If they want to ban something, make all legislative proponents weigh themselves, then let them ask the kids how they feel about the toys. TOYS MIND YOU not FOOD don't cause the issues. Figures, you all must be using to much medical pot.

[unfairgov]

that is the truth the gov is trying to contorl us and our kids

[fabrat1]

Most over weight kids order adult meals not kids meals. I sat one day at McDonalds and watched a very over weight kid about age 7 or 8 eat an entire big mac meal. After that the mom let him have her left over fires and one of his sisters gave him part of her burger and to top it off the mom got him ice cream. That's why our kids are fat, the toy has nothing to do with it.

[craig_e1963]

Well now I have seen and heard a lot of crap! Yet what are we doing or shall I say what is the cali government doing. Here we are in a state of financial crisis about schools and unemployment etc..! We need to stop the frivolous BS in the courts and chambers and law makes. We are paying them to do a job. Not tell us what we can and can not eat or buy or how we feed our children and such. Com'n AMERICA wake up! We let them lawmakers waste hundreds of thousands of dollars on BS like what a company can and can not put inside a bag of food. While we have people living on the streets and children going hungry as well as un/undereducated.
American people please wake up and stop the law makers from wasting our tax dollars on bs and get to the real things in life