I read the Advertiser. While it is something that I only ever buy and read occasionally, I still feel embarrassed admitting to this. It’s like when I was in school and admitting I listened to any Simple Plan song (hey they had some good ones) ever was a hell worthy sin.
It’s not that they don’t write some good stuff in there. I mean, they do keep us up to date on a lot of things going on, but my problem lies in the bias attitude in some of their articles, and the fact that some of their articles are pointless, stuff we already know, or that I feel are just plain wrong.
As a perfect example, there is an article in today’s Advertiser on the debate on whether toys should be included in children’s fast food meals or not claiming that they’re a big reason many kids eat fast food, and thereby is a direct cause of childhood obesity. I completely disagree with this article, and the idea in general.
Firstly, as was stated in the article itself by a McDonald’s spokeswoman, “they only advertised the healthy options of a Happy Meal on television and other media.” I honestly can’t think of an instance where an advertisement for the kids meal has featured anything other than those weird apple slice packs or salad. While Hungry Jacks apparently “declined to comment”, I can’t remember seeing any advertisements for their kids meals anyway, or KFC either, nowadays. They spend too much time advertising the latest burger using the words “flame grilled” as many times in 30 seconds as humanly possible to focus on that.
I can say that as a kid I used to love collecting the toys. However, that was not the sole reason I ate there; the food tasted really good too. However despite the fact that I used to love the toys and they did make going to McDonald’s a bit more of a treat than say, getting fish and chips from the deli, I did not get hooked. I’ll still eat it now and again but not all the time. I understand how unhealthy it can be, and therefore only have it occasionally. Which brings me to my final point. The kids these toys are targeted at are young. I’m going to take the rough guess and say kids 12 and under, but I may be wrong. They are governed by their parent(s)/caregiver(s). They can beg and plead and do what they want, but in the end the parent(s) have the final decision. I’ll repeat that; the parents have the final say in what their kids eat. Just to make sure that got through to you here it is again, in bold, italicized, and a bigger font. We’ll throw it in a quote box for good measure.
The parents have the final say in what their kids eat.
There we go. I see in the news when it comes to censorship, and what is wrong with the kids, people will so often point the finger in the direction of someone else before looking at themselves. The kids will eat healthy if you give them healthy food. How hard is it to make some rice and chicken, instead of wasting fuel and time going to the fast food restaurant, buying expensive fatty foods, and then blaming someone else for your kids being fat?
If you don’t want them to eat fast food, don’t buy it for them.
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