Jan.22.2008 Sorry fat kids, no more free McDonalds for you
Apparently McDonalds was advertising on school report cards, which is pretty smart. But they’re not going to do it any more, in Florida at least.
“This is a good day for parents and children in Seminole County and anyone who believes that corporations should not prey on children in schools,” said Dr. Susan Linn, director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. “We are pleased that McDonald’s is listening to parents all over the country who believe that report cards should not be commercialized.”
On the jackets, McDonald’s offered a free happy meal to any student with all A’s and B’s, two or fewer absences, or good behavior in a given academic quarter. Susan Pagan, an area parent, notified the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, and an all-out public-relations battle ensued by early December. According to the campaign, the school district received more than 2,000 calls of protest.
“In the absence of needed government regulation to protect schoolchildren from predatory companies like McDonald’s, the burden is on parents to be vigilant about exploitative marketing aimed at children,” Ms. Linn said. “One parent can make a difference. There is no doubt that the Seminole County ads would have continued — and violated McDonald’s pledge to stop advertising in elementary schools — had one parent not called attention to the problem.”
I don’t think “predatory” is the right way to phrase this, Ms. Linn. It’s not like McDonalds was giving kids a cheeseburger, then fingering them. So let’s keep that in perspective.
And yeah, maybe giving kids fatty foods in exchange for their good work isn’t the best idea. But maybe selling space on report cards to a company that profits from the sale of fatty foods is also not the best idea. We’ve all made mistakes.
Kids need rewards though, so I have to commend McDonalds. What I do with my kid, by which I mean the fat kid I keep in my basement, is tie a hamburger to a string and dangle it in front of his face. The key is that the hamburger is just outside of his reach, so he can never grab it. Parenting’s pretty easy, so long as you have a decent amount of string.
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