Fast food fight

On Dec. 1st, a new law went into effect in San Francisco, taking toys out of children's meals at fast food restaurants.

This "healthy meal ordinance" might be intended to battle childhood obesity by taking the happy out of the meal, but San Francisco's City Council overstepped their authority in this legislation by restricting the rights of parents and unnecessarily regulating commerce.

Despite a veto by Mayor Gavin Newsome, San Francisco's City Council was able to override common sense and the rest of the country by a vote of 8 out of 11. Backed by pediatricians, educators, and parents who have problems controlling their kids without help from the government, the ban forces fast food restaurants to alter their menu in order to exclude promotional toys.

To include a toy, meals in San Francisco must contain fewer than 600 calories, less than 35 percent fat, half a cup of fruit and three-fourths of a cup of vegetables, less than 640 milligrams of sodium and less than .5 milligrams of trans fats.  

Looking over the McDonald's nutritional facts, these restrictions seem petty considering the effort the company has already made to counteract the Morgan Spurlock documentary Super-Size Me. The most fattening Happy Meal (cheeseburger, fries, and chocolate milk) contains 700 calories. Other than mandating fruits and vegetables (since when does the potato stop being a vegetable because it's deep fried?), these nutrition requirements are met in many Happy Meal combinations.

Fortunately for San Francisco's misguided agenda, facts do not get in the way of legislation. A Kansas State Study conducted this fall by Dr. Mark Haub, proved exercise and calorie counting are more important to a healthy lifestyle than vague definition of acceptable food. The professor lost 27 pounds in two months eating nothing but Twinkies and other vending machine products. It's quantity not quality of calories that counts. McDonald's is a convenient scapegoat for obesity; somehow Americans can't be trusted to have self-control when it comes to what we eat.  

Unfortunately proponents would prefer the city council play parent for them, turning the expression "it takes a village to raise a kid to an unhealthy extreme. Parents who choose to let their children enjoy fast food are now viewed as pushovers, unable to say no to their children's love of toys. Ultimately, parents have the right to feed their children whatever food they think is best. Until children start driving and buying fast food themselves, there's no need for San Francisco to treat parents like kids, incapable of making decisions in their family's best interest. Americans need to start accepting more personal responsibility for the weight, instead of blaming companies that sell us what we want.