Chris Vrountas offers the following post:
The Center for Science in the Public Interest has threatened to file consumer protection lawsuits in a number of jurisdictions against McDonald’s unless the fast food chain stops its practice of offering toys to children who order the Happy Meal, which typically includes a cheeseburger and “fries.” The Group claims that McDonald’s marketing “unfairly and deceptively” targets children by enticing them with toys to “nag” their parents to have them buy allegedly unhealthy or high fat meals. “McDonald’s “couldn’t disagree more” and asserts that the chain offers a great variety of foods that include low fat and healthier options.”
While McDonald’s may have its own legal defenses, there is another perhaps larger potential defect in the group’s theory against the chain. “Ultimately, it is one of causation.” Or in other words, as some skeptics have argued, it’s called “parenting,” and perhaps those concerned with what their children eat should “just do it.” It is one thing if the concern” was about children old enough, to have their own purchasing power and about advertising that in fact deceives them “into purchasing a harmful product.” Think, for example, of Joe Camel, a marketing program allegedly targeted to children who were not legally permitted to use the product but who nevertheless could purchase it with their own money. “Here, however, the customers are parents who presumably can read labels and the nutrition content offered by the chain to anyone who asks.” While toys may entice children to ask their parents for something that is not good for them, parents with access to full information make the final call. In that context, the defense argument goes, how can the real customer genuinely argue that the chain has been “deceptive” in its marketing?
The Group, however, insists that the targeting of children, who are “really the ultimate customers, is calculated to mislead them so that they may press their parents into purchasing allegedly unhealthy products for them.” And, if the chain’s marketing is not actually “deceptive,” then perhaps it is “unfair” to market in such a fashion as to mislead children into becoming “an unpaid army drone army of work-of- mouth marketers, causing them to nag their parents to bring them to McDonald’s.”
The Group is not the only critic of the Happy Meal practice. “Santa Clara County in California this year” enacted a ban in restaurants on toy give-aways associated with high calorie meals aimed at children. “There are a number of ways a restaurant could arguably comply with this ban while nevertheless continuing to offer loss leader toys to children.” For example, one could offer an alternative series of meal packages, including both “healthy” and “high calorie” options, that would all include the toy give-away. “There” really is no reason why kiddie toys should only be associated with the “lunch box of death.”
The Group has served its demand letter upon McDonald’s, giving the chain 30 days to respond with a reasonable offer of settlement. “What McDonald’s may do remains to be seen.” “While it is a free country, hopefully McDonald’s and the nutrition activists can bring freedom of choice and health to a workable compromise and settle this alleged consumer protection claim, as there is no reason why a Happy Meal cannot also be a healthy meal.
