San Francisco's Board of Supervisors passed a ban on toys that fast-food restaurants give out with their kid's meals. They said that they would allow fast-food restaurants to add the toys to the children's specialty meals again, if the franchises agree to make the food healthier.
At first glance, it seems to be a wonderful initiative to get people, namely children, to eat healthier food and to slow the spike in the average American's body weight. It is obvious that eating fast food is unhealthy, and that kid's meals target vulnerable children with their marketing, and with the small toy included in the deal.
But where did parental discretion go? We have known for years that fast food is a bad call for child nutrition, but parents still allow the occasional happy meal as a treat for a good primary school report card. It does not mean that they are purposefully poisoning their kids, or that San Fran needs to step in and solve the problem of child obesity.
It is presumptuous to say that people do not know what is good for them, or that they do not know how to appropriately raise their children. But to a certain degree, it is true: many people cannot care for themselves or their children. San Francisco was only trying to help slow the marketing campaign that was winning over children, who do now know that they are an enormous share of a ploy to make an unhealthy food more popular and lucrative.
As far as banning toys, though, the Spectrum editorial board advocates for choice over prohibition. Parents should know better than to feed unhealthy food to their kids, and banning toys and marketing schemes that compromise children's health would open up too large of a campaign against American businesses and tradition.
For instance, should we ban Halloween? It is the one time of the year that kids and adults can indulge in sugary vices, for which there are countless marketing ploys. Should sugar cereals, despite their relative healthiness, rid themselves of the Trix rabbit or Tucan Sam?
To begin a crusade against kid's foods will require a force of revolutionary proportions. The products, with which parents and children seem content, are just not evil enough for a ban. Like any other vice, information is the only way to deter prospective buyers from indulging in an unhealthy pleasure in a free country.
San Francisco seems to have the right attitude: they try to help children stay healthy, even when their pushover parents buckle to a pair of sad-puppy "buy it for me" eyes. Children certainly do not know what is good for them, but it is up to parents to decide what is good for their children until they can decide for themselves.
