Statement: San Francisco move to limit junk food toy giveaways a huge plus for public health

Eliminating the marketing of junk food to kids could reduce obesity rates, sparing millions of children lifelong health problems and our healthcare system billions each year.

 

McDonald’s has been in the hot seat of late for its long-standing and pioneering practice of peddling junk food to children; especially our very youngest children (for which such predatory marketing is no less than exploitative). The White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity has recommended branded spokes-characters no longer be used to sell junk food, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has announced a suit against McDonald’s for toy promotions linked to Happy Meals, and Corporate Accountability International has launched a highly visible grassroots initiative to retire Ronald McDonald. For close to 50 years, the “hamburger-happy” clown has been at the heart of the practices McDonald’s pioneered.

 

No matter how the industry slices it, McDonald’s predatory marketing practices are making children sick. We know if such marketing ceased we could spare the health of a generation. It’s time McDonald’s, its competitors, and its surrogates stopped readying to litigate and started doing the right thing – retiring its spokes-clown and the suite of practices, namely toy giveaways, that prey on the innate vulnerabilities of children to grow profits.

 

Parents should have the primary say over what children eat, not the world’s leading burger chain. And today parents are asking McDonald’s to listen to their call to stop manipulating policy and our children.