Marketing to Kids is No Child’s Play

The debate on marketing to kids has been ongoing for a long time. Now the spotlight has turned to fast food marketing, with fast food giant McDonald’s in the hot seat.

More than 550 health professionals and organizations in America have signed a letter to McDonald’s Corp asking the maker of Happy Meals to stop marketing junk food to kids  and retire the well-loved red-haired mascot Ronald McDonald. The campaign is organized by the nonprofit watchdog group Corporate Accountability International, which has also targeted tobacco companies and beverage makers like Coca-Cola Co. and Pepsi Co Inc. for the environmental impact of plastic bottles.

Perhaps it is because I am not a mother yet myself, that I do not have maternal instinct to protect a child. But I do wonder if all this uproar over McDonald’s being a nutritionists’ nightmare is symbolic of a culture of parenting that points fingers to everyone but themselves.

I think these health care professionals and organizations fail to understand one elementary thing: for almost every kid, a Happy Meal and its toys are one of the simple joys in life they can look forward to. It baffles me when the debates that center around marketing to children denounce it as ‘inherently deceptive’.

It is parents’ absolute responsibility to teach their children how to be media-aware, what is real and what is not, what is healthy and what is not. If marketing is truly ‘inherently deceptive’, should all advertisements be banned then? Instead of suing McDonald’s, perhaps it would be better to just learn to say ‘no’ to your kids.  Children’s tastes for sweet and salty food develop early in the first few years of their lives and may shape preferences, overall health and potential for obesity later on in life. So where does it all begin? In the home, of course.