A mother of two from Sacramento, Calif., says that McDonald's uses toys as bait to induce her kids to clamor to go to McDonald's and to develop a preference for nutritionally poor Happy Meals. With the help of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, today the mom, Monet Parham, is filing a class action lawsuit aimed at stopping McDonald's use of toys to market directly to young children. The suit will be filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco shortly after the court opens for business Wednesday morning.
According to Parham, the main reason her six-year-old daughter, Maya, asks to go to McDonald's is to get toys based on Barbie, i-Carly, Shrek, or Strawberry Shortcake. The food seems almost beside the point to the kids, says Parham, because the toy monopolizes the attention of Maya and her two-year-old sister Lauryn.
...This is McDonald's advertising directive - to subvert parental authority and mobilize pester power in order to sell unhealthful meals to kids using the lure of a toy.
Strange that the left has suddenly come out against pester power when they so frequently promote it in connection with another child exploitation scheme; forcing adults to change behaviors to save the planet. Sam Foster is a freelance conservative writer who blogs at Left Coast RebelThomas Lifson adds:
I want to know precisely who is forcing Ms. Parham to take her children to Mickey D's? Rather than involve the courts in dictating what can and can't be sold at a restaurant, Ms. Parham should learn to exercise parental authority. The subtext here is all too plain: to put the state in charge of raising children.
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