McDoanld's toys don't need to undermine parental authority...there is clearly no parental control in the first place. My parents decided where we would eat (and McD's was not it)...they also didn't allow total tv/computer veg out and our backyard was full of fun stuff to do so that we didn't piss off the neighbours either. Amazingly, I was not obese...though I get annoyed at the baby fat that has never really gone away from my knees. :-) But I see no parental control exerted over the kids on my street...there are a lot of parents that need to step up...it's not courts that should be deciding what their kids have access to, it's them.

This absurdity should be tossed out of court. CSPI has no standing to sue and there is no reason McDonald's cannot engage in a legal transaction with a willing customer.

We really need "loser pays."

McDoanld's toys don't need to undermine parental authority...there is clearly no parental control in the first place.

This. Just two days ago, as I was getting groceries, a couple of ladies were shopping together with a toddler sitting in the seat of the cart. The two ladies looked like they were sisters, and the toddler belonged to one of them.

Sister (opening the milk cooler) says to Mother: I assume you're still sticking with skim?
Mother (to sister): No, [Toddlerbrat] won't drink skim. She'll only drink 2%.
Sister (to Toddlerbrat): You are spoiled.
Sister (to Mother): You don't get skim for yourself, then?
Mother: No, we just drink her 2%.

So Toddlerbrat dictates what kind of milk EVERYONE in the family drinks now. Funny how it worked exactly the opposite in my family, when I was growing up. Had I known how to seize the reins of power at such a young age, maybe we would have gotten cable TV!

A co-worker of mine, about ten years ago, had two boybrats, aged 2 and 4. She said they "wouldn't eat" anything but fish sticks, chicken fingers, and fries. They are 2 and 4! Why are they telling YOU what they "will" or "won't" eat. Just stand on the wee fuckers! I don't mean force-feed them, just offer something that isn't total junk for godssake, and wait for them to get hungry enough to eat it. If they whine, send them outside so you don't have to listen to it.

I wonder how that family is doing nowadays - the boys would be somewhere around 12 and 14 years of age. Lovely.

It's not the Happy Meals. It's not the toys. I think it's the whole decades-long blurring (from both the media and well-meaning parents trying to get their kids to eat) of eating and "fun" that's a large chunk of our big fat problem.

"Eat it, or eat nothing." ~Dad
"Nothing"~Me

Plate sits there for an hour until they're done and getting up from table.

"Stop"~Dad to me when I try to leave table.
"Finish your food." ~Dad to me

"No."~Me to dad

"Then sit there." ~Dad to me.

"Waaaah, I don't want to!" ~Me before and during brief spanking.

Two hours later, plate is wrapped and put into fridge and I am sent to bed.

Next morning, breakfast is served. Parents eat scrambled eggs and bacon.

I appear at table, and what is laid before me?

The reheated food I refused the previous night.

Eventually, it is eaten and gone.

Problems with getting me to eat for the next 13 years? As close to 0 as one might expect.

My folks should give parenting classes.

"They are 2 and 4! Why are they telling YOU what they "will" or "won't" eat. "

People treat their kids like customers, and themselves like salespeople. Capitalism in the home - whoopee! - it's never too soon to form them into good little ravenous consumers.

Hey, Robert, if your parents told you that you had the choice between the plate of food and nothing, why wouldn't they let you get up and leave the table? I guess "nothing" wasn't really a choice?

I can't see forcing a kid to eat something. I can't see being a short-order cook, either - I ain't yo bitch, kid! - but if they really desperately didn't want to eat what I cooked, I would allow them to leave the table without eating anything.

I got my ass whipped once for not eating mushy canned peaches. I still think that was wrong, and I still hate canned peaches.

...the Center for Science in the Public Interest said that the plastic promotions lure children into McDonald's restaurants where they are then likely to order food that is too high in calories, fat and salt.

ummm...

Lure? Order? As if happy-meal-aged children are roaming/driving around cities unattended and with money of their own to walk up to the counter/pull into the drive-thru and say, "I'll have a cheeseburger Happy Meal, please, with a coke"???

When I was that age, saying, "I want a happy meal" to my mother virtually guaranteed that I wasn't going to get one for the next 6 months. Happy Meals were like butterflies -- only if you sat quietly long enough and didn't pursue them, would one find its way to you.

I'd be a-okay with them getting rid of the toys (not via government order though!) because they just annoy me. Not because my kids beg to go there. They don't. We eat there about once a month, because sometimes mommy just wants a damn double quarter pounder with cheese. My kids are skinny. And kids NEED fat (probably not as much as most US kids get considering their activity level, but still) because brains are made of fat. Maybe the rash of low-fat in the 70's and on up explains current stupidity?

Oh, Pirate Jo, toddlers CAN'T drink skim. Very bad for them. If the mom decided it was easier to drink 2% (toddler SHOULD be on whole milk!) then that's on the mom. I drank whole when I have a toddler on it, too.

Right there with you, momof4. There is a huge difference between a child's needs and a child's demands. "Damn that spoiled toddler for needing a nap! How dare her sleep schedule dictate when her parents can party!"

Growing up, the house rule required my two brothers and me to take at least some amount of the meat and vegetables my mother had fixed. No part of the rule required us to like it. I remember washing lots of veggies down with milk to kill the taste, but doing that was tolerated as long as I ate what I was supposed to. To my mother's credit, if she realized that one of us really couldn't abide something (beyond the limits of the usual juvenile brattiness), we usually didn't see it again.

By the way, does anyone remember the Burger Chef Fun Meal, which predated the Happy Meal by several years?

Oh, Pirate Jo, toddlers CAN'T drink skim. Very bad for them.

Well whaddaya know - I had no idea. I thought it was another case of a Tiny Tyrant, like my co-worker's kids. I stand corrected!

Oh well! Since I have had my tubes tied since the age of 34, I'll never run the risk of poisoning a kid with the wrong food! Likewise, I hold a proud record, after 40 years, of having never changed a diaper. I wouldn't even begin to know how.

I am the only one who decides when it's naptime and when it's party time in my house.

I'll never forget dear old dad force-feeding me alternate spoonfuls of lukewarm canned peas and equally lukewarm canned fruit cocktail. I really don't know how I managed to keep it down. Fear, I guess.

This was before I learned the true purpose of the pockets in the old-lady aprons we girls were made to wear at the table while we were young. Those pockets transported many an unwanted portion from table to toilet!

Of course there was always spreading it around on your plate, but that never worked.

My mom got a wild hair about garlic for a while, after hearing that it has many health benefits. My Midwestern parents are more the type to eat shoe leather, AFTER running it through a dishwasher to make sure it has no flavor left, their taste runs so bland. (Butter, salt, and pepper are the only "spices" they will consider eating.) So there was no way she would actually cook with garlic, or use it as an ingredient. Instead, she made my brother and I each swallow an entire garlic clove, like a vitamin, in the morning. And THAT was before the big-assed spoonful of cod liver oil! Good god. I may have had terrible breath as a child, but at least I got my omega-3s.

Ha, PJ, try some authentic Southern cooking some time. No salt, no pepper; just bacon grease. Even though I grew up in the South, I can't stand it. I'll take Mexican anytime.

The thing everyone's missing about this story is that CSPI basically exists to shake down companies for contributions. This whole Happy Meal issue will mysteriously go away once McDonald's makes a "donation" of a few million dollars.

"Of course there was always spreading it around on your plate, but that never worked."

Mom did pick up the occasional plate and find a half-circle of peas under the rim.

They tried everything to make me eat peas. Once they even made me a "pea sandwich". I know, I KNOW!

I think I actually did lose my lunch on that one.

They tried everything to get me to eat peas. Even a "pea sandwich" (I know, I know, shaddup). I think I actually did barf after that one.

And kids NEED fat (probably not as much as most US kids get considering their activity level, but still) because brains are made of fat. Maybe the rash of low-fat in the 70's and on up explains current stupidity?

That is an interesting thought. I believe it is certain fats that are needed (Omega-3?).

I would have preferred stuff be cooked to be bland. Bland is better than nasty. Part of the problem is my parents don't appear to have much ability to taste...especially my father.

Re spreading food around on the plate: Dr. John Rosemond's way of preventing that is to put 1/4 ounce of each entree on the plate - such as one green bean, one tiny bit of potato, and a similar portion of hamburger. THEN you say "clean your plate." If the child refuses, no second helpings. That way, at least, there's no parental focus on meat vs. vegetables. (Dr. Spock pointed out that saying "finish your vegetables first" only would make the vegetables all the more undesirable.) If the child goes to bed hungry, well, that's her choice.

What most parents don't seem to get, though, is that it's OK to punish kids (if gently) for WHINING for things! That can be defined as asking for anything more than once after you've said no, depending on the circumstances. That is, it's OK to express a want, but once the parent's said no, kids need to have an incentive not even to try to argue with the parent, if only so they can move on to other matters and allow the household to maintain its peaceful atmosphere. Certainly Rosemond and Amy Dacyczyn (author of "The Complete Tightwad Gazette") would agree.

Here's what someone said about that, in 2006:

"If it is reasonable to punish a kid for whining (I'm not sure if it is or not), the parent must first make sure the kid understands what is meant by 'whining'. I remember that for part of my childhood I had no idea what the word whining actually meant (I think the concept was clarified in some book I read), and I thought it was arbitrarily applied to anything my parents didn't want me to say for whatever strange reasons grownups have for not wanting me to say something. I couldn't make a conscious choice to 'not whine', because I didn't know what that actually meant.

"I think it's also important that the parent understand why exactly the kid wants whatever they want, and that the kid understand exactly why they can't have it. I know of a few unfortunate situations where the kid wanted, for example, a black schoolbag because having a green
schoolbag was a offence that was punishable by being spat upon in the schoolyard, and the parent, unaware of what their kid was suffering, refused to buy a black one because the green one is in perfectly acceptable condition. This lead the kid to assume that the parent wanted them to be tormented. I also know of some situations in which the kid didn't know that they simply could not afford the item they coveted, and thought the parent was saying no for the sole purpose of
making the child unhappy. I'm not a parent myself, but I doubt whatever sense of discipline or frugality or delayed gratification these parents were attempting to instill was worth the long-term loss of trust."

(end)

I can sympathize, but I think the proper response to any demand that is not strictly taboo but IS expensive should be: "Earn it" or "maybe for your birthday." That way, at least, the kids will not feel constantly distressed at the idea of being poor - if the family IS poor. Plus, eventually, they will understand that their parents are not "stingy," whatever that means, they're just trying to get kids to think before they buy, because stuff = work.

Maybe the staff behind the counter could make a managerial decision and just deny the toys to the fat kids?

Hmmm...a little redundancy in that last post of mine. Oh well.

"This lead the kid to assume that the parent wanted them to be tormented."

Yep. Eddy Murphy, in his "Raw" comedy special, has a whole routine about the neighborhood kids bragging about going to McDonald's for hamburgers and how his mom refused and made him a hamburger herself.

It's really pretty funny how he describes the way he cried while he sat there with his burger between two slices of bread that turned pink when the juice came through. I laughed but I know how he felt.

Eric! Deny the toys to the fat kids? It's not the toys making them fat! Don't you know anything? They should deny the MEAL to the fat kids, and just give them the toy!

If this CSPI organization knew anything about science, they would have that figured out too.

The fat kids get a box with a carrot stick and a toy in it. See? Problem solved.

I don't have any problems with my son eating. He eats (or doesn't eat) what I cook. If he doesn't want to eat it, if it's something new, he has to take three bites, then make a decision. Fifty percent of the time, he ends up eating the whole thing. If he doesn't want to eat it, he doesn't get a second helping and he doesn't get something else to replace it. If he's hungry, it's his choice. He knows it.

For McDonald's, we eat it once every three-four months, normally for something he did that was really good. I rarely get him asking for it. He knows the answer is most likely no. My son also doesn't watch any television that has commercials advertising for McD and he plays outside at least one hour a day, more depending on the weather. Needless to say, he's not fat, and on the wonderful new scales at the doctor's office, which seem to be judged on percentiles, rather than healthy weight, he finally made it to the 25% mark. When looking at the other kids the same age and their nice round bellies, I know why.

Another point, since the toy is the "reason" for the kids eating poorly, how many of these parents go to McD and just buy the toy? It only costs about $1.

Personally I think that forcing your child to clean their plate is a HORRIBLE idea-it teaches them to ignore their natural hunger cues and eat food because it's there, not because they're hungry, which ultimately leads to overeating and obesity. Ditto with forcing kids to eat foods they don't like and completely forbidding ones that they do-I can't think of a better way to make your children crave (and sneak and binge on) junk food and hate the healthy stuff. And I would never send my child to bed hungry-I wouldn't bend over backward to cook them a special meal, but I'd always make a PB&J available, and if they want to eat one every meal for 6 months, who cares?

If you think about it, as adults we have the discretion to eat what we want, when we want; have an extra snack if we're hungry, skip a meal if we're not, eat the same thing for 3 months straight if we feel like it...basically let our eating habits be dictated by what our body wants and needs, not by random external forces. This is hardly an unreasonable privilege to extend to our kids (within reason of course). I'm not saying let junior eat potato chips for dinner, or make the whole family eat chicken nuggets every night, but I just don't think that FORCING a child to eat is the way to go.

For me myself, I remember eating a lot of "kid food" as a kid...hot dogs, chicken nuggets, mac&cheese, sugary cereal, etc. I don't think I voluntarily touched a green vegetable until I was 11. On the other hand, my parents didn't allow us to snack on junk food; we got dessert once a day, soda once a week, and fast food maybe once a month, so I never had the attitude that anything was "forbidden" (which = super desirable) but just that these were special treat foods to be eaten in moderation. My parents ate a very healthy diet so I was always exposed to that food, and when I finally started to eat that way myself it was available. Today I'm a vegetarian, eat very low-carb, will eat ANY fruit or vegetable in existence, love all kinds of ethnic/spicy/exotic foods, and don't touch junk food or fast food--so eating a little unhealthy as a kid didn't hurt me any. Whereas "clean plate clubs," forced eating, or forbidding foods can cause eating problems for YEARS to come.

It's so interesting, all of you who were tramautized as a child by being force to eat. It seems to always be canned fruit or vegetables. My kids have no idea what canned fruit and vegetables taste like because I won't buy that shit. Most kids will eat things, good or bad for them, if they actually taste good.

A few years back Alton Brown did a show about how canned fruits and vegetables were about the best thing next to growing your own, since they are harvested at their peak and preserved asap as opposed to being picked early and then transported for days.

I've always wanted to ask Amy which McDonald's in Paris she would recommend... the worst one I ever went to was just outside Shakespeare's home.

HEY! How come our resident food expert (NR) never participates around here any more??

If you're old enough, a good excuse is that fast food wasn't as bad in the old days as it is now...

That's true! Once people (MBA's) started measuring profits against shelf life and nutritional content using Microsoft Excel, the consumer was doomed to suffer. Look at the shape of the typical, impoverished urban American.

Been in this place 9 years now. Used the stove three times, used the microwave daily. I'd date more if there were a way to elegantly FEED these women.

Forcing a child to "clean their plate" may be good or bad, depending upon the portions they are served.

If a kid says they're not hungry, and there is a good deal of food left on the plate, fine, wrap it and store it in the fridge.

But when they go looking for snacks twenty minutes later, don't hand over the bag of potato chips.

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Nothing wasn't intended to be an option, they underestimated my stubbornness, and I underestimated theirs.

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Children are as picky eaters as their parents allow them to be.

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When I'm home on leave I take my kids to the golden arches, get them a single hamburger, and let them run wild in the play area. Most of the time they're not interested in the food, they just want to play. Only reason I even bother to buy is that I think it only right to do so since they provide a better playground than the park.

Thankfully my parents never forced us to eat things we didn't like. My mother didn't do the short order thing but she started offering us fruits and veggies from a very young age. Maybe the fact that she was a good cook helped. My dad owned a soda route and we were never had it in the house or any of the sweetened juices. Occasionally he'd bring home some soda and it was a nice treat. They never made it forbidden. They just didn't make it so easily available. Instead they had healthy alternatives so that we never felt deprived. Forcing kids to eat things they hate starts food battles and an unhealthy relationship with food. I blame that for many of the weight problems we seee in adults. Nothing is worse to me than hearing a parent tell their kid to clean their plate. How about just eating until you're satisfied?

When my kids were small, each person was allowed one food they didn't like, and they were not required to eat it. But, it couldn't be changed every day.

In my case, it was something my mother called stewed tomatoes. When I was a kid in Arkansas in the early 50's. I broke my leg and was stuck in bed for weeks. We were rather poor, and it was a good year for tomatoes.

So, every day she mixed home-made bread with tomatoes and stewed it for a while, then if I wanted to eat, that is what I had to eat. Once I could walk again, I could escape.

To this day, it is hard to even look at something which involves a mixture of flour with tomatoes. I think I was in my 40's before I was finally able to eat a bite of pizza.

I still strongly suspect anyone who mixes tomatoes with bread should face a firing squad. Heh, heh.

Now I do all my own cooking, because of the special diet I am on (think Phase one of Atkins, forever.) But, my wife for years until we retired always prepared the evening meal for everyone, she thinks at least one meal a day should include a balanced diet, with a nice vegetable, meat, and something like potatoes or some similar food, nicely displayed on the plate.

She did like to try new things. I NEVER complained about anything and told the kids as hard as their mom worked to make a good meal, I thought it was unacceptable to complain about anything she made, even if you don't like it. Working for a long time, then receiving complaints just is not acceptable.

So, if she tried something new, and asked me how it was, I would say, "It is fine, thanks."

Then, if I really couldn't stand it, I'd wait about ten seconds, and add, "But, I don't think I'd like to eat it every day."

That way she never had to hear complaints but knew I really didn't like it.

Several people seemed to think it is unacceptable to 'force' kids to eat what they don't think they like. That is exactly the mentality that produces those problem eaters. "I get to decide what to eat" instantly becomes "Mom or dad have to ask me what to cook, their knowledge of nutrition and food budgeting is no better than mine."

Which quickly segues into, "Their knowledge of anything is no better than mine."

Thanks for demonstrating the problem.

I am for some reason reminded of a man I worked with years ago. He seemed to always have a dog, but didn't train them to do much except house break them. He said he did not think it was moral just because he was bigger and stronger than an animal to force it to obey his will.

He will go to his grave with a nose all chewed up and disfigured by his dog.

Personally I think that forcing your child to clean their plate is a HORRIBLE idea

This reminds me of my cousin's sister-in-law. She and her husband have a kid the same age as my cousin's older daughter. When they were little, M was so much bigger because her parents heaped food on her plate and told her she needed to eat all of it before she could get up. My cousin's daughter was a normal-sized girl, but she looked positively emaciated next to M, who was much, much bigger than she needed to be as a toddler, and she still was the last time I saw her (she's 13 now).

I'm with Amy on it being completely out of the realm of my imagination that I could have demanded fish sticks and macaroni all the time. I ate what my parents ate, and, with the exception of meat sometimes (which were my only fights about food), I liked it. I would rather have had chicken casserole (casseroles were good for getting my protein without having to chew large hunks of meat) with broccoli than chicken nuggets.

Children are as picky eaters as their parents allow them to be.

Right on, Robert. There's a commercial on now for one of the nutritional supplements where a mom is pointing at all the things her daughter won't eat, including anything green. So she gets PediaSure or something instead. It was never okay to be that picky when I was growing up. Not at my house, anyway. Of course, I ate all the vegetable baby foods except green beans while disliking the meat ones, so maybe I'm just wired differently. But I'd always eat it if it wasn't something I flat-out hated. And my parents never served me anything I flat-out hated, so I couldn't argue that I didn't like the hamburger patty (another of the few meat dishes I'd eat), because I'd eaten it the week before. Thus, I was never forced to eat green beans, because I hated them. I was made to eat meat, but only enough so I got enough protein, which wasn't much at all. It just never would have crossed my mind to demand something different.

This is the big question: Why just McD's?

If they are going to sue one, they should also be suing Barfer King, Hardlee's, Joke-in-a-box, Taco Hell and every other place that does a kids meal.

Follow the money......

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I was raised to eat everything -- that included the clean your plate years. The nice thing was my mom was a decent cook.

At the same time I can choke down the worst food imaginable -- without gagging -- and appreciate it. I have had times that my front was rubbing up against my back and I realize how thin it can get.

CSPI is a bunch of busybodies. Unfortunately they are aided by the laws passed by our nanny state legislators. It will turn out that they do have standing, & McDonalds will cut some kind of deal. There is no liberty without the right to be wrong. We no longer have that right.

irlandes said:

Several people seemed to think it is unacceptable to 'force' kids to eat what they don't think they like. That is exactly the mentality that produces those problem eaters. "I get to decide what to eat" instantly becomes "Mom or dad have to ask me what to cook, their knowledge of nutrition and food budgeting is no better than mine."

Which quickly segues into, "Their knowledge of anything is no better than mine."

_________________________

Thanks for putting it so well. Besides, if one follows the tiny-portion method Rosemond gave, how would that lead to obesity?

Amy Dacyczyn said that while many people believe in "respecting" kids' preferences, she believes that this is like the many areas where kids can put aside their preferences for the greater good of the family - not to mention their health. She adds that she only gave them small portions of hated foods and praised them afterwards: "You did a good job eating that. I know it's not your favorite."

From her's book "The Complete Tightwad Gazette" (this is a two-part article called "War and Peas"):

(part 1)

"Neal, who once loathed asparagus, now 'almost' loves it. Jamie's onetime dreaded food, bean soup, is now like any other to her. Many mealtime guests have watched in amazement as our children ate.

(part 2)

"(A reader from) Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, wrote, "Bravo! Finally, a parent who doesn't take orders from children!" Karen Poulson of Los Angeles, California, said, 'Everything we serve has a nutritional purpose. Just as we do not allow children to take medication at will, they may not choose what they eat at mealtimes.'......

"...Some readers suggested I was too compulsive in worrying about the cost of a small portion of peas. But picky eating often begins with small amounts wasted and can increase to where as much as one third of the food on the child's plate is wasted, even when the child is allowed to choose what's put on his plate. I know, because I have seen this. Parents often tell me that their food bills are out of control because their older children refuse to eat low-cost foods. They sigh and regret they weren't firmer when their kids were young.....

"Mealtimes in our house are HAPPY times, precisely because the expectations are clear, and we are free to get beyond constant battles over food and talk and laugh together as a family."

(snip)

And regarding ordering kids to clean their plates, Dacyczyn seemed to agree with those who say that that is only likely to lead to obesity if the parent puts too much food on the plate. After all, it IS generally agreed that kids should eat three times a day - which they might refuse to do, even when they like the food, out of pure contrariness. Think of Sarah in "All-of-Kind-Family," who did just that. If it's OK for poor parents to insist that kids not waste food (and not only for financial reasons) why is it not OK for richer parents to do that?

Finally, from good old Rosemond (this from his June 1 column):

"Leadership is simply the calm, confident conveyance of authority. It is acting like you know what you are doing, the nature of your purpose, and what you want. It is not having a consultation with a 4-year-old concerning what foods will grace his plate for dinner. Leadership is not concerned that the child is averse to vegetables. It is concerned with producing a citizen who loves his neighbor enough to accept, graciously, any food the neighbor serves him."

Comments on food tastes and forcing children to eat certain foods prompted me to search out this post that I had read two years ago when it was originally posted.

The lady who wrote it no longer blogs, so no point in sending her comments on it.

Also, one thing about Kids Meal toys - I'm pretty sure they weren't originally about marketing the meal, and my kids hardly ever asked to go to McD's or Burger King for the toy. I'm pretty sure they were more about giving the child something to keep them occupied at the table when Mom or Dad took them there as a way to save some time and effort.

About that post I linked to - One thing the author points out is that you don't convince children to like something just from repetition of eating it. They will like it or not because their tastes change as they get older.

I regularly go back and taste things I hated as a child, and find that I now like them. Even if I hadn't eaten them for 20 years. Repetition did nothing to change my taste, just the changes in me.

About that post I linked to - One thing the author points out is that you don't convince children to like something just from repetition of eating it. They will like it or not because their tastes change as they get older.

I regularly go back and taste things I hated as a child, and find that I now like them. Even if I hadn't eaten them for 20 years. Repetition did nothing to change my taste, just the changes in me.

Posted by: WayneB at June 25, 2010 8:37 AM

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What does any of that have to do with a child's need to eat NUTRITIOUS foods? Or the need not to waste money? Or the need to learn to respect the person who went to the trouble to cook the food?

See what Rosemond said at the end of my post.

@lenona - It addressed people's comments about forcing children to eat things that they don't like, rather than finding things they can tolerate. It's possible to feed most children things that are nutritious enough without forcing them to eat things that may even make them physically sick.

Some people were espousing the notion that you can make children learn good eating habits by forcing them to eat what you set out instead of working with them. This does not always work, especially in cases where the adult's tastes are wildly different from the child's. I hadn't even come CLOSE to addressing the need to eat nutritious food, just some of the comments here.

"

These kind of letters exist purely to be copied to the press and get on the news. Costs virtually nothing because they haven't actually filed suit yet, but on the news everyone hears "intends to sue" and thinks it's a big deal. I very much doubt whether a lawsuit will ever eventuate. It's a shakedown not a genuine complaint, enough bad publicity and McDs will pay some money to make it go away. 'Loser pays' won't fix that. But why would McDs pay then? Read on...

I'd be a-okay with them getting rid of the toys (not via government order though!) because they just annoy me.

I think they're talking civil suit rather than government order momof4, but yes the article does mention a county that has banned them. And the line between government order and civil suit seems very blurred in California:

The letter is legally required in several states before lawsuits can be brought under consumer protection statutes.

I'm not familiar with the laws in question but my guess is they exist to give organisations like the CSPI standing to sue and also to allege large but diffuse damages which, because of course they can't be traced to specific people, must be paid to the state. I live in Australia where we haven't gone that far yet (although we're growing our own grievance industry rapidly) so I don't really know but I assume that's how it works.

The problem is the laws. Things like "consumer protection statutes" sound lovely but what they are is the outsourcing of regulation to self-appointed busybodies. Without that McDs could laugh off the threat.

that a cheeseburger is bad for you

I'd like to point out that the bun is part of the cheeseburger and those buns are right up there with corn syrup and raw glucose. Then add to that shit quality meat.Also if you've ever had to watch a child eat a burger without the bun at a fast food place you'd be less appt to suggest it. I stay away from fast food cause it makes me feel awful afterward.

 This however will not absolve parents of shit parenting. If you can not get your head around the idea that you are a parent not a buddy "you dun fucked up". Growing up my brother was the fucking grand master of tantrums. Even as a child I knew I'd never get away with that behavior, but man was it affective. He got to eat what ever the fuck he wanted when he wanted and I was forced to eat the same shit. I can not see or smell Vienna suasages (yes the nasty little canned ones) with out having to bite down nuasia. The best part is my parents can't figure out why his behavior hasn't changed. I stare at them everytime this comes up with a mixture of confusinon and a bit of resntment. No shit it hasn't achanged he get what he wants when he wants why the fuck would he cange the behavior.

WayneB said:

It addressed people's comments about forcing children to eat things that they don't like, rather than finding things they can tolerate.
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And some kids would claim that ANY vegetables are intolerable. So?
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Some people were espousing the notion that you can make children learn good eating habits by forcing them to eat what you set out instead of working with them. This does not always work,
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But it can. And one of Amy D's points was that kids should not dominate their parents' attention at mealtimes. This is avoided by letting them know they will be punished if they don't eat what they're served in a reasonable amount of time (so they don't miss their school bus or fall asleep). If they don't eat, they know they've made the choice to be punished later.

BTW, I don't remember my mother's ever telling me to clean my plate, but I did. Either it never occurred to me to waste food, or the first time she ordered me to do it, I knew I'd better or I'd be sorry. And she certainly didn't let me put big portions on my plate anyway.

Brussel sprouts, okra(I dont care how you prepare it), and canned spinach.

I will never, ever, under any circumstances short of starvation, ever, at those things.

And no I didnt misspell eat, thats how you pronounce it where okra is served

There are three things I won't eat as a stand-alone food, split-pea soup, stewed tomatoes, and creamed corn. I'll use crushed (etc.) tomatoes in soups and creamed corn in potato soup. I won't touch split-pea soup, but will eat regular frozen peas.

My mother can deal with it.

Okra wasn't part of our lives, but I can eat fried okra if it is cooked recently.

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The big thing is that I'm willing to try just about anything at least one (maybe even twice). That was because I was brought up to appreciate
anything.

And everyone has to try Bi Bim Bop from a good Korean restaurant at least once. Everyone I know ends up "face-down" in the bowl eating it.

I know I'm late to this one, but I must comment. It's as if McDonald's were a pervert or Pied Piper luring children to their doom.

F*ck CSPI.