Public Interest Group vs McDonalds
[Guest post by DRJ]
A public interest group plans to sue McDonalds for putting toys in its Happy Meals that help make kids fat. The story teaches us two things:
The Center for Science in the Public Interest repeatedly uses lawsuits to force businesses to negotiate. </block quote
That's true.
Some parents are held captive by their children’s dietary and entertainment demands. That’s also true, but it doesn’t make it McDonalds’ fault.
— DRJ
Aaaaand if you can’t say “no” to little Fatty McFatterson, what kind of a parent are you anyway?
The problem is not McDonald’s.
It’s parents.
But I will wager that McD’s caves just as they did on the “CoffeeCrotch Suit”.
Anon 1:50 (ab0a05) — 6/22/2010 @ 8:04 pmHow many calories do the toys have?
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 6/22/2010 @ 8:05 pm“The Center for Science in the Public Interest” has many falsehoods in the title of the organization alone:
My guess is that most of the people who work there wear leather and are not vegans. You know? They just want to tell other people what to do….
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/22/2010 @ 8:08 pmWhoops. That was supposed to be a bulleted list. Apologies.
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/22/2010 @ 8:09 pmSome parents are held captive by their children’s dietary and entertainment demands.
They are held captive only because they want to be. It’s easier to give in to the whining, nagging, pleading and tantrums than to say NO, without hesitation.
I would add the story tells us three things. The third being that if given the opportunity, parents will take the easy way out and file a lawsuit rather than stand up to their children.
This does not bode well for the modern parent. And especially not for children who long to be told no.
Dana (1e5ad4) — 6/22/2010 @ 8:14 pmHalf overheard from the local news while prepping lunch–some group or other (didn’t catch the name, so it may or may not have been this same outfit) has done a survey of some sort which establishes that kids prefer food items with cartoon characters on the cover, and use this as evidence to push for getting rid of this sort of marketing. (Supposedly they found 1)that companies often used to cartoon characters to help promote nutritionally valueless foods and 2)when allowed to choose between an item packaged with a cartoon character on the box, and one without, kids generally preferred the taste of the one with the cartoon character, even when the item of food was actually the same in both boxes.
Of course, no mention was made of trying to persuade parents not to give into little Johnny or Mary’s demands; for these folks only a law (or at least a regulation or a lawsuit) will do.
kishnevi (bb4d18) — 6/22/2010 @ 8:14 pmBesides, government always knows best.
It takes a village, remember.
Well, the politically connected, economically insulated leaders who live above the village have different rules, but the rules for the villagers are fair and for the best. Right?
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/22/2010 @ 8:16 pm“It takes a village, remember.”
Eric – In the Gulf, It takes a spillage.
Never let a good crisis go to waste.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 6/22/2010 @ 8:29 pmMichael Jacobson, executive director of CSPI, says it’s the parents responsibility too
It’s not the “parents responsibility, too” – it’s the parents responsibility. Period.
“…but he equates the toy giveaways to a door to door salesman coming to a family’s house every day and asking to privately speak with the children.”
No, it isn’t. No one is speaking privately with other people’s children. Before even walking into a McDonald’s – before even pulling into the parking lot – both parents and children know that there are toys with the meals. That’s why they go to McD’s!
“At some point parents get worn down,” Jacobson says. “They don’t always want to be saying no to their children. We feel like an awful lot of parents would be relieved if this one pressure was removed from them.”
Yes, parents get worn down – but good parents, smart parents are able to identify those situations that inevitably lead to a battle and then avoid them. Or they have some backbone and stand their ground. And frankly, it’s none of his business how tired or worn down the parents are and it’s not his job to decide if and how to relieve pressure on parents.
The “public interest” group is nothing but meddling do-gooders who need to stop attempting to usurp parental responsibilities and rights. And parents need to stop abdicating those responsibilities, too.
Dana (1e5ad4) — 6/22/2010 @ 8:29 pmI would like to see the lawsuit and how exactly the violations of consumer protection laws are alleged to occur as well as understand the standing of this group to sue. Seems like just a shakedown racket.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 6/22/2010 @ 8:39 pmThis kind of sh-t will only get worse if obamacare is upheld.
Parents, have a frickin spine, or don’t complain.
Aaron Worthing (A.W.) (f97997) — 6/22/2010 @ 8:42 pmFight now or our freedoms are doomed by do-gooders.
mbabbitt (424211) — 6/22/2010 @ 8:45 pmIs Mayor Bloomberg on the Board of this group?
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 6/22/2010 @ 8:49 pmIt takes a village, remember.
And there are a lot of idiots in that village. Among them, the ones who are threatening the lawsuit against McDonald’s, those who agree wholeheartedly with the lawsuit, and those who probably believe people like Obama, etc (or merely prominent variations of ambulance-chasing trial lawyers) symbolize truly inspiring, lovely, compassionate, heartfelt guidance and judgment.
Mark (411533) — 6/22/2010 @ 8:50 pmI do not like those people. Not one little bit.
JD (d55760) — 6/22/2010 @ 8:58 pmMichael Jacobson is to food what Meghan’s daddy is to free speeches.
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/22/2010 @ 9:02 pm“At some point parents get worn down,” Jacobson says. “They don’t always want to be saying no to their children. We feel like an awful lot of parents would be relieved if this one pressure was removed from them.”
So what do they have planned for parents who are completely exhausted by saying no, not to their small children but to their teenagers – that being when the really hard work of parenting kicks in? What kind of lawsuit will they file to relieve them of that pressure?
Dana (1e5ad4) — 6/22/2010 @ 9:03 pmour country really seems to have taken quite a shine to fascism… it would be cute if it wasn’t, you know, fascism.
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/22/2010 @ 9:07 pm‘“At some point parents get worn down,” Jacobson says. “They don’t always want to be saying no to their children.’
What are you talking about? “No” was my all time favorite parenting word.
By the time my boys were teenagers, they didn’t even waste time asking me for anything, ’cause they already knew what the answer was going to be.
Dave Surls (19c148) — 6/22/2010 @ 9:15 pmA little irony regarding the public interest group filing the McDonald’s lawsuit,
One example is CSPI’s contention, from the mid-1990s onward, that trans fats pose a public health danger. Three trade groups — the National Restaurant Association, the National Association of Margarine Manufacturers and the Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils — in response “said the evidence was contradictory and inconclusive, and accused CSPI of jumping to a premature conclusion.”[13] Nevertheless, the risks of trans fats are now generally recognized.[14][15][16] A Wall Street Journal editorial acknowledged the risks, but argued that CSPI itself was partly to blame for creating the problem. In its 1980s campaign against saturated fats (at a time when even CSPI itself maintained that trans fats were relatively benign),[17] CSPI had persuaded many restaurants, such as McDonald’s,[18] to introduce trans fats in the first place.[19]
Dana (1e5ad4) — 6/22/2010 @ 9:31 pmUgh, this is ridiculous. Judges need to get much more aggressive about applying sanctions for frivolous suits like this.
TomO (1267d3) — 6/22/2010 @ 9:50 pmActually, I keep waiting for a class action lawsuit on behalf of toy deprived children against CSPI!
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/22/2010 @ 10:10 pmcharging that the fast food chain “unfairly and deceptively” markets the toys to children.
— “unfairly” because they should be marketing the toys to everyone? or, “deceptively” because they . . . oh, I don’t know . . . because they pretend to market the entire meal to the adult buyer, when they’re really just marketing the toy to the kid? or something?
Since when was allowing freedom of choice NOT in the public interest?
Icy Texan (31a5d5) — 6/22/2010 @ 10:14 pmWell, Icy, when they know what is best better than anyone else, of course!
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/22/2010 @ 10:16 pmIsn’t advertising, by definition, sort of coercive?
What is McDonald’s supposed to do, tell people NOT to come in and buy something??
This is nuts–how can they have standing?
Patricia (160852) — 6/22/2010 @ 10:26 pmWhere does it end? Will there be cotton candy and deep-fried twinkies at your next state fair? or will the food-Nazis get to them, too?
Icy Texan (31a5d5) — 6/22/2010 @ 10:26 pmThey certainly want to take them away, Icy. They know better. Of course, they want to impose rules that they don’t have to follow, but that is another topic.
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/22/2010 @ 10:32 pmIt will be a so much better world once our betters take away and hide all of our dangerous playthings, won’t it Eric?
Icy Texan (31a5d5) — 6/22/2010 @ 10:39 pmI think that these people are all royalists, and want to create a real aristocracy—sort of a world run by John Kerry and his clones.
But they need serfs.
That’s us.
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/22/2010 @ 10:42 pmCSPI is just another gang of extortionists who happen to have sheepskins.
And remember, this is another NGO supported by your tax Dollars.
AD - RtR/OS! (2480c8) — 6/22/2010 @ 10:48 pmBut they need serfs.
Comment by Eric Blair — 6/22/2010 @ 10:42 pm
Serfs prostrate themselves before their masters;
Free men stand on their feet, holding their rifles at the ready.
Everyman a Rifleman!
AD - RtR/OS! (2480c8) — 6/22/2010 @ 10:58 pmThey can pry the Happy Meal toy from my cold, dead hands!
Icy Texan (31a5d5) — 6/22/2010 @ 11:04 pmBut AD, that is what gun control is for!
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/22/2010 @ 11:38 pmRemember how the Imperial Japanese used to forbid, on pain of death, the commoners from having weapons…and why they resisted firearms in the nineteenth century so avidly.
They needed their serfs complacent.
We’ll do it with entitlements, not samurai.
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/22/2010 @ 11:40 pmAmericans are fat because they eat like the government tells us to, based in “science,” not science. The food pyramid was created by an aide to George McGovern with no science experience. The government tells you exactly the wrong thing to eat: a high carbohydrate, low-fat diet.
Evidence-based science (laid out persuasively in investigative science journalist Gary Taubes’ Good Calories, Bad Calories) says otherwise: that it’s carohydrates that cause the insulin secretion that puts on fat. Eat flour, sugar or starchy vegetables like potatoes (or apple juice, which, with all its sugar, is hardly more healthy than a Coke) and you’ll pork up.
Do as I do, and go to McD’s and order a bacon cheese Angus burger, no bun, and you’ll keep slim. Not kidding.
Amy Alkon (6146c8) — 6/23/2010 @ 12:09 amMD has 70 yrs marketing junkfoods because of high fat, high card and highly processed foods esp for children and also those toys. But still the parents are liable for their children’s behavior by making decision not to eat there. Right?
Mary (dfd998) — 6/23/2010 @ 12:16 amOh, but it’s Mickey D’s that is truly responsible, because they overwhelm the hapless parents by way of their insidious indoctrinate-the-children-by-means-of-absolute-advertising-mind-control campaign!
Or something.
Icy Texan (31a5d5) — 6/23/2010 @ 12:56 amOh, Ms. Alkon…your genetics do have something to do with your own svelteness! But there is much truth to what you write.
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/23/2010 @ 1:13 amCondensed version:
Icy Texan (31a5d5) — 6/23/2010 @ 1:34 amCSPI: “We want you to stop marketing your kid’s meal to kids. What were you thinking?”
McD’s: “We were thinking that kids like kid’s meals. Don’t you think that kids like –”
CSPI: “We don’t CARE what kids like! This is all about what they SHOULD like.”
McD’s: “Don’t you think that maybe THE KIDS should be the ones to decide what they like?”
CPSI: “Kids are TOO STUPID to know what they should like; that’s why we –”
McD’s: “We didn’t mention what they SHOULD like; only what they DO LIKE. You see, there’s a difference.”
CPSI: “You TELL them what they should like.”
McD’s: “Actually, we let them tell us; then we provide it for them. That’s called servicing your market.”
Were I the judge and this suit came before me, I would award McDonald’s punitive lawyer fees. I don’t know how far you can go on punitive awards, but at least 4 times what it cost McDonald’s to defend against the suit.
Fritz J. (9848e1) — 6/23/2010 @ 2:28 amThese are the sorts of idiots that would make everyone get a bag in order to remove all toilets from houses because sometimes teenage boys give other teenage boys swirlies.
Keep the frickin toys. Parents take control.
Vivian Louise (643333) — 6/23/2010 @ 3:55 amMy daughter’s epiphany that daddy was not always wrapped around her finger, came when she was five. I was bringing her back from preschool in the middle of a snowstorm with already six inches on the ground. We were crawling, trying not to skid off the road. We pass a McDonald’s and she asks if we can go. “I said no. I cannot turn over there with all this snow and traffic. Besides Wednesday is Mcdonald’s day and today is Monday”. She starts crying, and insisting loudly, “Daddy, listen to me, listen, it doesn’t have to be on Wednesdays, etc., etc.” I turned on the radio. High. By the time we got home, she had gotten it. I parked the car and started to shovel the driveway. She took her little shovel and helped me.
nk (db4a41) — 6/23/2010 @ 4:12 amWell, as long as spineless liberal parents continue to raise whiiny entitled kids we are going to continue to make STUPID law.
pitchforksntorches (12026e) — 6/23/2010 @ 5:06 amBut how do I, as a reasonable person, stop this institutional madness?
My take was a wee bit less charitable.
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/ca-nannies-warn-mayor-mccheese-is-a-child-molestor/
cbullitt (951954) — 6/23/2010 @ 5:39 amParents need to be the party of “NO.”
People's Front of Judea (44bf37) — 6/23/2010 @ 6:58 amComment by pitchforksntorches — 6/23/2010 @ 5:06 am
That was my other question. What law could these clowns sue under? And what is their standing to tell McDonald’s not to sell a green witch to my kid?
nk (db4a41) — 6/23/2010 @ 7:20 amJacobson and his cohorts at phony CSPI have created an amazing fiefdom -a large, job-secure fiefdom- out of nothing over the past decades. They make millions from their “grants”, their threats and lawsuits. They could give a rip about “science” as Dana has already pointed out. They could give a rip whether kids are fat or not. They have perfected the art of soundbites (heart attack on a plate) and slick video images that make the lazy news organizations salivate to put them on the air. CSPI is revolting on so many levels. They, and the worst of the global warming alarmists are two peas in a pod, pretending to respect science which they say demands forwarding an agenda, when it is the agenda itself- NOT the science-that is paramount to them.
elissa (4fe1f3) — 6/23/2010 @ 7:32 amthis is only a problem because the kids spend more time at McDonald’s than in mom’s kitchen. Stay home, cook for yourselves and use MickeyD as an occasional treat. It’s a lot cheaper, too.
quasimodo (4af144) — 6/23/2010 @ 7:38 amNk, you have always seemed to be a good father. Kudos. I liked that story at #42. Thank you for sharing it.
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/23/2010 @ 7:56 amIt’s not a problem, at all. I worked as short-order cook in a diner when I was young. There was nothing wrong with my bacon and eggs, steak sandwiches, or burgers. Policemen and hardhats would come in for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes with their families.
The problem is what elissa said above. Some geeks who have found a money-making racket.
nk (db4a41) — 6/23/2010 @ 7:57 amThank you, Eric.
nk (db4a41) — 6/23/2010 @ 8:07 amelissa, I have long wondered if those characters of CSPI “walk the walk.” My guess is that they don’t, and I would love to see some neojournalist get footage of them at Burger King or something similar.
There are some New Puritans who walk the walk, sure. But I smell hypocrisy all over those people.
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/23/2010 @ 8:10 amI haven’t bothered to see them since Rush Limbaugh was on TV but I remember them as emaciated hippie-type geeks who live on boiled seaweed.
nk (db4a41) — 6/23/2010 @ 8:14 amOne reason I tend not to trust CSPI too much:
http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/543-tragic-legacy-of-cspi.html
They seem much more about political fashion than science.
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/23/2010 @ 8:21 amNext they will go after Disneyland for deceptively marketing all that fun and excitement of a trip to an amusement park just to get you in there to buy a fattening hamburger for $10. It’s un-American! I mean, you don’t have any other alternative for lunch when you are at a place like Disneyland, and your kids are nagging you for lunch at that Toy Story Burger Stand. What’s a parent to do (other than buy the Buzz Lightyear sippy cup for $15)? Disneyland should be forced to stop selling such fun and excitement, and such great toys, because it’s obvious that it’s making our kids fat!
Ben (4c70e1) — 6/23/2010 @ 8:53 amThere should be only hemp-based sustainable toys for children.
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/23/2010 @ 9:07 amHemp based? Nah, just outlaw toys altogether! That will save all those poor wearied and exhausted parents from having to ever say NO!
Dana (1e5ad4) — 6/23/2010 @ 9:19 amShame on these people, they’re taking toys out of the mouths of children.
ropelight (b3dda9) — 6/23/2010 @ 9:27 amPersonally, I would say that this story teaches us exactly one thing:The “Center for Science in the Public Interest” needs to be defunded and forced to get real jobs.
PCachu (e072b7) — 6/23/2010 @ 9:29 amAmy,
Patricia (160852) — 6/23/2010 @ 9:50 amI so agree with you. Once I stopped eating like the govt told me to, I lost weight and got healthy.
Why wouldn’t the companies that are being sued, sue this organization right back. Frankly, the only way to stop these “foundations” is to bankrupt them. I understand that there could be some negative publicity however if the companies are willing to take the long view (if they can afford to) then making sure these groups know that they can’t attack a company with impunity then these nonsense suits should be cut right back.
scr_north (c93057) — 6/23/2010 @ 9:55 amDidn’t someone sue Kellogg’s over “Tony the Tiger” as improper marketing to children “hooking” them on sugar?
AD - RtR/OS! (6f143b) — 6/23/2010 @ 9:58 amWhen does the court just tell these clowns out of my court.
bill-tb (541ea9) — 6/23/2010 @ 11:26 amWell, Hell, I agree that McD should stop selling these toys in Happy Meals. Just yesterday, I saw a 6 year old on lunch break from his high paying job, roar into the drive up lane in his new BMW, and order a Happy Meal that he paid for with his credit card. When he got to the window, and received his meal, he opened it up and saw that the toy was missing. He leaned out the window, grabbed the poor little teen girl by the scruff of the neck and shouted, “Where the foook is my toy you biatch?”
Okay, sarcasm off.
It isn’t the gubments job to say no for these poor bedraggled parents. When my mother or father said “NO”, they only said it once verbally. If you continued challenging their authority, the next “NO” was said physically on your butt. Didn’t take many second “NO’s” to understand and agree with the first “NO”.
peedoffamerican (e72f77) — 6/23/2010 @ 7:16 pmThis is something that simply has no business being litigated. Whether or not McDonalds should be allowed to sell toys with food is not a policy question for the courts.
This is indicative of so much that is wrong with our society.
SPQR (26be8b) — 6/23/2010 @ 7:29 pmI loathe loathe loathe loathe these people.
JD (23a165) — 6/23/2010 @ 7:41 pmMcDonald’s has given their formal response to CSPI about the Happy Meals. It’s exactly what I had hoped to see.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2476982,CST-NWS-happy08.article
elissa (44b15b) — 7/9/2010 @ 8:07 am