The War on Happy Meals

Take a time out from all the very serious post-election analyses and spinning, relax and point a finger of ridicule at San Francisco city officials for banning fast-food kids meals.

The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to forbid restaurants operating in the city's limits from offering toys with meals that contain more than set levels of calories, sugar and fat. That rules out giving little Jimmy a plastic Yoda to go with his junior cheeseburger.

It's the war on Happy Meals.

Officials said they're merely attempting to combat the "epidemic" of childhood obesity.

"We're part of a movement that is moving forward an agenda of food justice," said Supervisor Eric Mar, who sponsored the measure.

Food justice?

That sounds like a parody of what a stereotypical San Franciscan would say.

Look, no one's going to argue that Happy Meals and their ilk should be on the training tables of Olympic athletes. But neither are they live grenades just waiting for the pin to be pulled. Life is full of things — foods, activities, etc. — that if not taken in moderation can have adverse health effects. The solution to that is to provide people with enough facts to make informed choices.

Of course, the problem with a free society is that sometimes people make the wrong choices.

Singling out Happy Meals as a way to combat childhood obesity — by removing the toy, no less — is a clumsily blunt and reflexively authoritarian response. Are these kids overweight because they eat too many Happy Meals? It's more likely their lifestyles are unhealthy — meaning, even if they pass up McDonald's they still will consume too many calories and too much fat and sugar at home, not to mention get too little exercise.

Clearly, fast-food chains market these meals to children, often tying them in with popular movies.

But so do a host of other products. As Americans' disposable incomes rose in previous decades, they could afford to spend more on their children. They could purchase an entire "Star Wars"-themed bedroom, from blankets to waste cans. That has given kids plenty of opportunities to ask, plead and beg for this, that or the other.

But one thing hasn't changed: The parent's power to say, "No."

Unless we missed the wandering hordes of unsupervised children entering McDonald's with fistfuls of cash and ordering Happy Meals, the decision on what goes into a kid's stomach usually is made by the person paying for it — an adult. San Francisco has just absolved parents of the responsibility to teach their children about choices, trade-offs, consequences, delayed gratification and disappointment, at least when it comes to some comfort food.

Where does this kind of nanny-state tyranny end? Sure, the republic isn't going to collapse because a kooky city took toys out of Happy Meals. But once you accept that the government not only has the authority, but the duty, to regulate that picayune stuff because it's in our best interest, it becomes harder to stop when it reaches something of greater import, because you've already conceded the principle.

If removing toys from Happy Meals fails to produce the desired results, then San Francisco might feel emboldened to reach further into people's lives. To statists, the end always justifies the means.

Those efforts shouldn't just be opposed, they should be openly mocked. Ridicule is an effective weapon against these insufferable prigs.

REPRINTED FROM THE PANAMA CITY NEWS HERALD.

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