One of my favorite fallacious arguments of all-time is a commercial voiced by Jamie-Lee Curtis which professes that simply eating dinner with your children will stop them from doing drugs. The research shows children from families that eat dinner together regularly are less likely to do drugs than children from families where family sit-down dinners are not as frequent. I am sure this is correct, but post hoc ergo propter hoc. Just because something happened after something else doesn't mean it is caused by something else.
Eating dinner with your kids doesn't keep them from doing drugs. And banning toys from Happy Meals doesn't make kids healthier.
Although that is the argument being used by New York City Councilman Leroy Comrie. He wants to ban meals with more than 500 calories from being marketed to kids, because he thinks that will solve the problem.
The only way to get people to have proper eating habits is to teach them proper eating habits. And the best people to teach proper eating habits are parents. The government can't do it, and the government shouldn't do it. I am sick and tired of the government seeking to ban things that I do in moderation just because other irresponsible people abuse them.
I am talking about poker, but also McDonald's. The night before Passover we had no food in our house. So we went to McDonald's. We got Chase a Happy Meal. 4 chicken mcnuggets, some french fries, a ton of ketchup and a toy of a little dog named Luiz from the movie "Rio." I can't remember the last time before that we had McDonald's but we are teaching him it is a treat, only to be used occassionally.
I always say the biggest problem in this country is a lack of personal responsibility. It's easier to blame someone else for your shortcomings, than to accept them and fix them. And my biggest problem with liberals in general, too often, out of guilt or misguided sympathy, they offer these excuses for people. It's not your fault your kids are fat, McDonald's is marketing Happy meals directly to their malleable little minds and there's nothing you can do about it.
But there is something you can do about it. Teach your kids proper eating habits, which can include the occassional visit to McDonald's.
I'm sure there will be a time in the future when between soccer and baseball and trumpet and whatever other activities, we don't have time for a home-cooked meal. So we decide to take our kids to McDonald's.
That's right. We decide, because they're our kids, not the government's.
7 comments:
Paul I agree with you about personal responsibility, but to be fair it's not just liberals who ban gambling, etc. There are loads of Republicans in Congress and in various state legislatures who favor illegalization of gambling on moral grounds. Same is very much true of prostitution.
What do you think of banning smoking in restaurants/casinos/bars?
Yes there are morally righteous conservatives, but they don't really come after food as much.
And when they do come down on gambling it is for moral reasons which are hard to argue and impossible to change.
You are free to pursue your happiness in any way that doesn't interfere with me pursuing my happiness. So smoking is out in public places. But in private bars, restaurants and casinos the government should not ban it, but I wish the business owners would.
Yeah I kind of feel like NYC's smoking laws are reminiscent of prohibition, but from a selfish and non-legal standpoint, I can't stand cigarette smoke and am therefore glad the laws exist.
Jamie-Lee Curtis should go back to doing those commercials instead of selling yogart that makes her shit regularly.
Jamie Lee Curtis should to back to when she was kinda hot. For real, she went from "yeah, I'd totally still do her" to gray and ancient in like 2 years.
Back to the topic at hand. I think we need to simplify the discussion. A Happy Meal should definitely exist, no changes needed. I somewhat agree with the anti-marketing stance though. If everything is neutral, you can decide, or help your kid decide what to eat. If they were battered with ads for 6 months showing a happy meal and toys, that opens the door to them potentially influencing you and your food decision for them, due to nagging/crying/freaking out etc. That situation would quite possibly not happen if the marketing wasn't there.
Ton I'm totally with you from a practical standpoint, and I think McDonalds is a pretty evil empire independent of its marketing.
But I can't get on board with trying to ban their marketing, because it's really tough to justify restricting a private company's marketing practices, and it can open the floodgates. What about sugary cereals or candy, or video games for that matter?
TON, your stance is everything should be the same except they should stop offering toys? Who does that help? Parents and kids like the toys.
The only thing that should change is people should be better parents and teach their children better habits.
I don't care how well something is marketed to kids, if the parent can't resist the nagging and begging, then a Happy Meal is probably the least of that kid's problems.
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