More proof on how the fast-food chains aggressively target our children and shame on Fox

I'm getting pretty tired of hearing the whining from parents who criticized San Francisco for banning toys in unhealthy happy meals.

The legislation doesn't ban toys as Fox-unNews claimed in a recent segment. It simply states that toys need to be offered for healthier meals.

A new study today underscores the need for the legislation and should encourage other cities and counties to follow San Francisco and Santa Clara County's lead.

According to Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity,children as young as two-years-old are seeing more fast-food ads than ever before, and that fast-food restaurants rarely offer parents healthy kids’ meal choices. Report findings show that fast-food marketers target children across a variety of media and in restaurants, and that restaurants provide largely unhealthy side dishes and drinks as the default options that come with kids’ meals. The new report is the most comprehensive study of fast-food nutrition and marketing ever undertaken.


The report, titled Fast Food F.A.C.T.S. (Food Advertising to Children and Teens Score), examined the marketing efforts of 12 of the nation’s largest fast-food chains, and analyzed the calories, fat, sugar and sodium in more than 3,000 kids’ meal combinations and 2,781 menu items. It also analyzed marketing practices of the 12 major chains. Some of the key findings include:

* The fast-food industry spent more than $4.2 billion dollars on marketing and advertising in 2009, focusing extensively on television, the Internet, social media sites and mobile applications.

* The average preschooler sees almost three ads per day for fast food; children ages 6-11 see three and a half; and teens ages 12-17 see almost five.

* Kids ages 6-11 see 264 child-targeted ads from McDonald’s, 125 from Burger King and 32 from Subway each year. In total, they see 368 McDonald’s ads, 185 Burger King ads and 127 Subway ads.

If fast-food companies want to be true partners with Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign they should stop promoting junk food and liquid sugar to children and offer healthy options rather than high-calorie, high-fat, cheap foods and beverages that they do now.

For example, in 2009 (compared to 2007) preschoolers saw 21 percent more ads for McDonald’s, 9 percent more for Burger King, and 56 percent more for Subway. Children ages 6-11 saw 26 percent more ads for McDonald’s, 10 percent more for Burger King, and 59 percent more for Subway. These increases are especially notable for McDonald’s and Burger King, which have pledged to reduce unhealthy marketing to children.

The bombardment of unhealthy food and beverage advertising and marketing is even worse for Hispanic and African-American children.

~ Paula