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So glad the mayor veto'd this.
Risk comes with freedom.
Its this constant notion of 'its a small price to pay' to combat something for no known benefit that's driving a lot of cultural angst.
Its feels nice to legislate based on emotion, but really. Adults have the money and have the final say. If a child can emotionally dominate their parent to constantly get Happy Meals I think we have a larger, different problem that extends to more than just physical health.
So what? No more Happy Meal toy incentive if the meal contains more than 600 calories? The child didn't change how it behaves. One outlet for its greed was taken away. Now it wants Dairy Queen. Or the new Pokemon game. But don't blame the parents. They answer to the kid.
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He whom would take liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Ben Franklin
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On November 16 2010 13:48 Saturnize wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2010 13:31 Ordained wrote:
Good, Fast food in general needs to be banned. Stop acting like people are being forced to eat crappy food.
They are. Fast food companies main targeted demographic is low-income families who cannot easily afford to make their own, more healthy food, and supply them with high fat and high calorie fast food at cheap (but still profitable) prices.
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On November 16 2010 13:54 Irrelevant wrote:
He whom would take liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Ben Franklin
My God do I hate that quote.
Edit: It's so wrong. I mean, if we have to take away the liberty of one person to save the whole country, we shouldn't right, because Ben Franklin is a god who is always right?
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On November 16 2010 12:15 Jayme wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2010 12:11 Masamune wrote:
@ ferrose yeah but I think if eating apples and milk will get a kid a shiny new toy, most will give in.
I think overall it's a good start. Hopefully this will start a new trend of healthy behaviour. I would be nothing short of enraged if they tell me what I can and cannot eat. Let's hope it stays at this...I'm an adult and I value my ability to decide these things
It's been proven that people who have a bad diet are more likely to have health problems, and cause a burden on the healthcare system, as well as a lack of productivity at work..... It's costing the country (and the world) as a whole for people to be consuming that type of shit too often..... And you think it's your "choice"? Why should someone who has a proper diet (and ends up paying more money to eat healthy) also have to partially foot the bill (through taxes) for medical care and other programs created because of people who don't eat proper? Surely the people who cause the problem should be paying for it, right?
What if there was a hefty "unhealthy food" tax on stuff that was considered unhealthy? Not just because of calorie or fat contents, there's also foods high in sodium, foods with low amounts of vitamins/minerals in it, foods with processed sugars/oils, high cholesterol, etc..... Would you still be eating it? I know I would, but I don't eat it excessively, so it wouldn't affect me that much.
This bylaw is a fucking sham, much more drastic action needs to be taken, to protect people from themselves. I'm not saying that this stuff needs to be removed from society (I know I definitely enjoy burgers and a poutine once in a while), just that there needs to be better controls of it..... When almost 30% of a country looks like they'll get winded from walking up 2 flights of stairs, there is a huge fucking problem. Pun intended.
PS - I'm overweight myself, with a BMI nearing the limit for obese. I'm 6 ft 3, ~235-240 lbs, with a 32 inch waist, and my doctor thinks it would be bad for me to lose much more than 20 lbs of that. While I'm not going to be running a marathon, I'm actually a pretty good short-distance sprinter (40 yard at the longest). BMI itself is a fucking joke, but the idea behind it is pretty useful.
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is awesome32281 Posts
Lots of people here underestimating the power of ads and marketing.
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is it the parents fault for child obesity? yes
does that change anything? absolutely not. culture is what drives us to do shit. less then 1/2 of families now eat dinner at the table, people are thinking that dinner is some obstacle. i really think if people realize how much better fresh food (that's good for god sakes, 3/4 restaurants are so bad) fast food will slowly die. i'm less concerned about calories and fat then i am with how the meat is handled/what's in it etc.
a lot of problems right now can be solved if we cook our own damn food. it's cheaper, healthier, better in general. unfortunately dinner is seen as just a random meal which you eat everyday and they don't really bother wasting time on it. such a shame, nothing beats home cooking.
unfortunately it can't be advertised in a good way. what annoys me the most is how selfish people in every industry are, and how corrupt people can be. mani said it correctly imo it's sad that there has to be restrictions placed because of how ignorant some corporations are
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On November 16 2010 14:09 IntoTheWow wrote:
Lots of people here underestimating the power of ads and marketing.
Definitely. If people think advertisements and marketing don't work, why does every company invest so much money in them? Even if most people ignore a certain ad, it only takes a small percentage of people to be swayed for it to be well worth it. If ten million people see an ad for a $5 mcdonalds meal, and just 0.1% (1 in a 1000) are convinced to buy the meal, that's still $50,000 dollars back instantly, and far more over time.
Furthermore, ads work well when targeted at people. Your average TLer might not be effected by fast food advertising (though perhaps 1 in a 1000 would), but if faced with computer game related ads things would be very different.
I generally feel advertising to adults is fair game if it isn't clearly catastrophic to health (so banning cigarette advertising is ok with me), but kids are incredibly susceptible, and simply unable to plan ahead- they haven't developed enough. Perhaps a good parent might be able to resist their kids being miserable and jealous of their friends, but why should they have to deal with this bullshit? To give big companies the freedom to target unhealthy food at kids? For me at least, that's a freedom not worth protecting.
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they should just stop all fast food restaurants imo, keep only the oens open where they cook on the BBQ in front of your eyes, e.g. Harveys... um and pizza shops, thats about it. I havent went to MCdonalds, burger king, harveys, etc... in almost 4 year lol. 
edit: however, i have eaten some MCdonalds recently and i almost got sick, i guess after you quit mcdonalds for a few years your bodies resistance to the garbage in it fades away, so when i tried it again, about 15 minutes later i had pinching in my stomache, and eventually it went away, but thats just how bad it really is. heads up. i think cigarettes are better than mcdonalds imo. lol
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If you can't trust people to make their own decisions considering something as basic and simple as...how much they let themselves and their kids eat, how could you possibly allow them to vote?
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On November 16 2010 12:16 Kinky wrote:
I would hate to be a child in San Francisco now. I grew up with happy meals all throughout my childhood and I'm completely healthy now as an adult.
proving that eating happy meals throughought ones childhood is not only not bad for you it actually leads to healthy adulthood so it should definitely be encouraged. if only the ppl in san francisco were aware of this valuable information you provide so they could base their decisions around it.
seriously? you actually think your personal 1 person data sample experience of being born with above-average dna for metabolizing food means absolutely anything or is at all valuable to any kind of discussion about anything related to this topic?
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Ugh, government wants to control everything these days >.<
Spend more time helping people to understand that healthy meals are good and let maccas keep their toy.
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Of course lower income people are being targeted with cheap food. I'm sure the lobster and calamari market would love to grow their revenue base too. Every company everywhere is in business to do better for itself. Anyone with something to sell is going to market it, and they're gonna aim to do it as well as they can.
What happens if in theory all toy-in-meal based incentives were done away with? Then you might see free-toy-with-coupon give aways. Buy Barbie's horse adventure and get a $5 coupon for McDonald's and/or a free toy to be claimed -in-store-. Whatever gets banned - the people who are smart enough to make a lot of money are also smart enough to find loopholes we haven't considered.
Who suffers? The bloke who just wanted to get their kid a worry free meal and a little shiny piece of plastic one and awhile. Tax fast food? Isn't fast food targeted at low-income groups? Who wins when you tax the poor 'for their own good?' Insane cigarette taxes didn't stop smoking.
Another hypothetical - Get rid of all fast food. Now that low-income parent who isn't going to cook for their kid -suddenly- is gonna learn how to cook a proper balanced meal for their kid three times a day?
They'll be serving McDonald's Take-home microwaveable dinners -
- which will also come with a free toy.
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Ah nice to see that this kind of insanity is still stoppable.
Good job Mayor Newsom.
Honestly I'am unsure how anyone could even think this is a good idea. It's pure insanity, I've got enough problems with Government trying to tell me Video games are bad and should be banned/controlled heavily but now happy meal toys too? Slippery slope nanny state is in fact dead on.
If people want to stop them from Selling toys, boycott, campaign against it, be public about it but by all means don't go trying to get a law against it. That's just silly.
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Note: The government is not forcing McDonalds not to sell food. It's forcing McDonalds not to give away toys with the food. Restaurants can still sell happy meals. They simply won't come with a cheap plastic toy.
I don't understand how it went from the original article to everyone crying "OMG Government is forcing us to eat a certain way now! Where is our freedom to eat?"
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They can include the toy if its under 600 calories in some combination.
It went that way because that's what the article is about. the San Fran Gov't decided that a company was using an incentive to get kids to eat things that said Gov't no longer approved to go into their bodies, thus seeks with that legislation to say "Make this meal the way we want it or don't include that incentive."
People are reacting to this because I'm sure we've all seen some of this stuff go outta control.
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It makes me so sad to see that people don't realize that companies plot against them. Keep voting against your interests morons, and we will soon all be indentured servants to our rich overlords.
I salute you America, we had a good time while it lasted.
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On November 16 2010 14:09 IntoTheWow wrote:
Lots of people here underestimating the power of ads and marketing.
This. There is a lack of ethics observed in that domain; both in the scholar world and the private, corporate domain.
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On November 16 2010 14:48 A3iL3r0n wrote:
It makes me so sad to see that people don't realize that companies plot against them. Keep voting against your interests morons, and we will soon all be indentured servants to our rich overlords.
I salute you America, we had a good time while it lasted.
I don't think you know what people's interests are.
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Australia326 Posts
Glad this crap didn't get through, it's so ridiculous.
Whoever said above that parents are 100% to blame for obesity isn't correct either though, you have to take into account those who are predisposed (genetically) to obesity.
There are people saying in this thread that advertising is a transcendant power, and some saying that advertising doesn't do anything (and tell stupid story from their experience to 'prove' it), when obviously it falls in between. Yes advertising can have an effect, but at the end of the day, you're perfectly entitled to ignore or discount the 'message' they're selling.
Don't forget about exercise either, obesity and associated health problems are not just about food. Actively promoting sport, physical hobbies and making healthy food more appealing and more affordable seems like a good start.
Slightly off-topic:
I live in Australia and from grades 9-12 (grade 12 is the last year of high school) I had McDonalds about 3 times a week, for almost the whole year (for 4 years). I actually calculated the number of times i visited Maccas (as we call it over here) over this period and obviously tried to forget because it was scary. This wasn't because my parents didn't care about my health, it was for convenience (most of these visits were grabbing breakfast before school orchestra @ 6am in the morning). I'm sure if I started to balloon at the waist or developed high blood pressure they would have stopped. However the rest of my meals were pretty balanced, I ran a lot at school, and was actually underweight for these years (BM was around 17.5).
Over this time I managed to collect all the snoopy toys that were in the happy meals (yes both the soft versions and the plastic ones!) as well as countless other toys which still sit proudly on my shelf. I only go to McDonalds maybe once or twice a month now, but I still consider myself a veteran. (:
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