Unhappy Meals

Once the nanny state believes they have the right to control your health care anything becomes possible:

A county supervisor in California wants to ban Happy Meal toys and other similar treats that are given away with children's fast food meals....

Ken Yeager, the Santa Clara County Supervisor, is presenting a law at Tuesday's county board meeting to ban toys given away with unhealthy food. He believes the toys are used to encourage children to eat fatty, sugary, high-calorie meals that can lead to childhood obesity, according to the Silcon Valley Mercury News.

"They want the toy and have no idea what's in the food," Yeager said Monday to the Mercury News. "You can't expect a 3-year-old to say there are too many calories in that hamburger."

The regulation would be the first of its kind in the nation.

"We can't just do nothing and hope that families just find another way to avoid obesity in their kids," said Yeager, who hopes a new regulation could come up for a vote in late April. "We have to hold the fast-food chains responsible."

Of course, the larger question here is: do toys in fast food meal make children eat unhealthy meals? Who drives the kids to the restaurant? Who buys the food? It's not the kids. If parents are concerned about their child's weight, then they--not the government--should cut back on the cheese burgers and chicken nuggets.

I heard a radio report on this that suggested that toys should only be given out with "healthy" meals. So, if Kid A gets the hamburger and fries meal, no toy. If Kid B gets the tofu and carrots meal, he gets a toy.

Parents - you don't get to decide either way. You're clearly getting in the way of the government's control of your children.