Should McDonald's be forced to ban toys from its Happy Meals?

This is the most ridiculous thing I have heard in a long time. Parents have a responsibility to make wise choices for their children. I have 2 children, and, yes, they would love to eat at McDonald's every night. But it's simple. We say NO. Fast food is a treat they get a couple of times per month. The rest of the time it's home cooked healthy meals. Why? Because we have made the CHOICE to feed our children properly. And, quite frankly, anyone who tries to claim that either they don't have time, or cannot afford to eat properly is simply lazy. I can feed my family 3 meals a day for a week (21 meals) for about the same cost as 4 meals at McDonald's. As for the time factor, by the time you drive there, wait in line or at the drive-thru and drive home, home cooked meals can be on the table and ready to go.

Wake up people!!!! Make the right decision for your children. It's your own fault that they don't eat healthy or are overweight from fast food!!!!!!!!

The solution is to force McDonald's to make their food taste bad and if possible, make them add vomit to their burgers. Unless we do that, our kids will want to eat McDonald's every day and we'll have to go because we're spineless and lazy people.

I agree with Cyberbeast. The general consumer doesn't want to take responsibility for anything anymore.

The toys arent the reason my kids are eating at mcdonalds - they eat there because they're hungry and like the other posters have said, because its a treat. Toy or no toy, my kids are getting the happy meal.

To Education,
The "food" already tastes like something the dog brought up IMHO.

We actually do not purchase Happy Meals because of the toy. Over the years we have accumulated many bags of useless knickknacks from said meals. My husband and I took a stand, we told our children that these toys cluttered up our home and will eventually end up in the landfill, because they are garbage. Even the kids understand that our world is full of stuff that gets thrown away and don't want to add yet another piece to the already substantial dump pile. We feel that eating at McDonald's is a treat and if the children choose to fuss over the fact that they are not getting a toy then we will no longer eat there.

It's purely a marketing tool for all the wrong reasons. Bottom line, it's unhealthy. Any parent that insists that a child consume this "Food" should really take a look at the nutritional facts and the way it's prepared. More often than not, it's teen aged kids making this junk food; something to think about??? Only one post so far suggests it's ok, time to wake up and care for the well being of all children. "Ban the Toy's", remove temptation...........

I have a 24 year old son, who has always been taught to made wise choices.

I figure I should now own a 10% of the company as he is an avid consumer of Mickey Dees in two stages in his life - in his early pre-teen years he goes 2-3 times weekly after hockey because of the toys (amongst others he has the collection of hockey cards and snoopy characters to prove it) and then the adult meals during high school (almost daily - the MD right next to school was the school's unofficial cafetaria - no kids eat there at the latter, except with their packed lunch).

I am sure if MD has a new healthy option menu that fits his demographics, he would visit more frequently (free parking is a huge draw). I travel frequently to Europe and their McCafe beats Starbucks over there. I have started visiting MD for their coffee (they make a good cup - a tad better than Timmies and I swear I am 100% Canadian, and not too far off from Starbucks). While Wendy's makes better salads (use only half the dressing if health is a concern), MD is not far off.

Since 12 my son was able to read the Nutrition Guides (try getting that in a restaurant or the school cafetaria) and he follows the Canadian food pyramid, with fruits as his top choice. He is 6' and weights a healthy 180. BMI I am unsure of, but he played hockey, then basketball and now he is into mountain biking. I do not believe eating MD for 18 years has any ill effect on his growth (long term I do not know, but that is a bigger issue than MD with all the sprays and craps we use in our food chain).

Th easy thing for me is to blame society - and MD - for all the ills. But - as with our son as our very own flesh and blood - I figure all the responsibilities in teaching values, morality and good citizenship lies with the parents (the rules not something he is fond of, as "all of his friends" gets to eat whatever they pleases). I assure you my future grandkids will get to eat MD to their hearts' content as we will be telling them about the Food Pyramid before the Goldern Arch.

So ... all you naysayer, get a grip. We are talking about your children and your own health. Grow up and take on some responsibilities - it is no different than what you choose to stock your pantry and fridges with and what you cook in your kitchen. A healthy yummy sandwich 10 minutes to make!!! Shorter than the drive to MD.

MD is NOT the problem, you might just be the one after all.

The probnlem is that some parents have difficulty saying NO to their children. To sue McDonalds is ludicrous. Should I sue The Baie becuase my wife shops there when they have scratch discounts tickets? What about Canadian Tire? People elect to either eat at McDonalds or not. Our legal system is ecoming overburdened with nonsensical lawsuits.

This argument should not be about whether MacDonalds food is nutritious or not, it should be about whether companies should be marketing to children. Young children are nieve and vunerable and we protect them by laws from being exposed to certain activities, but there are no laws against marketing to our young children except in Sweden and Quebec. "Research has shown that children between the ages of two and five cannot differentiate between regular TV programming and commercials. ... and don't begin to understand that advertisements are not always true until they are eight." MacDonalds is only the tip of the iceberg. Sit down for a couple of hours during Saturday morning cartoons and watch the parade of plastic toys, sugary cereals, and fast food ads and realize what our children are being exposed to.

Putting extra measures to control the companies is only alleviating one tiny problem, if it even does that. The real issue is that parents don't know how to control their kids. Is the next step to say that Frosted Flakes can't put a friendly-looking tiger on the box? How about ice cream trucks? They can't play a happy song on the speakers anymore... they need to play Metallica.

Temptations will always be there. It's the job of the parents to raise their kids properly and say 'no'.

Hey parents!!! Do you like to be told that you're stupid and can't possibly make the right decisions for your children? I don't need a politician to tell me what I may or may not purchase for my children. This makes me so angry. Stay out of people's business! Don't you have something better to do than waste tax-payers money? I'm tired of the politically-correct police. Merry Christmas, I'm going to go put my Christmas tree up and sing Christmas carols. Haha

To all of you out there.......as someone who has worked in the "fast food industry" with kid meals you can say "NO TOY PLEASE" and you have an option of cookies or what ever instead of a toy.....you dont have to get it. And to all of you out there who buy your 2 year old pop with their meal.......There is such thing as juice or milk.....and you wonder why their teeth are rotting out of their heads......i bet you dont make them brush their teeth either......( cause they dont wanna )

This has to be joke. I cannot possibly accept that some people are stupid enough to sue over Happy Meals. NOBODY can be THAT stupid. Whatever happened to saying NO to their kids? I thought we lived in a free society. If McDonald's offers toys with their Happy Meal, all the power to them. Unless the toys are phyiscally harmful, or made of explosives, who cares. Here is my advice to those parents complaining about this: do your kids (and the rest of world) a favour and give them up for adoption to intellegent people.

It's junk food folks. Treat it as such. Childish statements like "put vomit in it " just demonstrate a recent surfacing from the shallow end of the gene pool. Junk food is not going to kill anyone if they use their head and make it an occasional treat and not part of the daily diet.

Any parent who cannot say no to their childs diet requests is, in my opinion, not qualified to be a parent. Any person who is so lame brained that they cannot say no when no is the correct answer and are bone headed enough to have to sue McDonalds should be investigated by Child Protective Services because their ability to be rational thinking parents is obviously missing.

Time for people to grow up!

John. Perhaps learning to read a post and discovering the meaning of sarcasm wouldn't hurt.

I am a 60 year old grandfather. I sit back with my wife and occasionally read articles and comments similar to this and we thank the good lord above that we are not raising kids today. We spanked our kids when they had temper tantrums, we said NO when we meant no, we didn't question authority when our kids were scolded at school by a teacher or principal, we did not make excuses for our kids when told they were bad at school, we allowed our neighbours to treat our kids like their own when our kids were at their homes. Today our kids have their own children and live by this new way of raising children. They give time outs, they give in to the childs demands, they scream bloody murder when a teacher calls them about a problem.......and they whine to my wife and I saying things like "I just don't understand why the kids are acting the way they are. We never did these things when we were kids.`` How quickly they have forgotten their childhood.