Is McDonald’s Making Your Kids Fat?

By: Pamela Maynard

It is our job as parents to feed our children at regular intervals and try to feed them nutritious foods as well. Ultimately, we choose to go to McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Burger King or KFC or eat at home. Not all food choices are bad at all these places. Recently, Ronald McDonald was blamed for making kids fat. There are a few things wrong with this statement:

1. Parents need to be able to say No to their kids. I don’t care how much they beg for that new Happy Meal toy. We are driving the car; we don’t have to pull into the McDonald’s parking lot. If you can’t say no to your children, maybe there are some things wrong with the bigger picture.
2. Speaking of Happy Meal toys, would your children beg for McDonald’s if there wasn’t a cool new toy?
3. It’s not even the fast food that is really making kids fat, it’s that with the combo of candy whenever they want, and snacks at every five second interval!
4. It’s our responsibility to teach our children to have good eating habits. It is not the responsibility of the fast food industry.
5. Some children eat at McDonald’s at least once a week. These same children are not overweight because they are active at home, school and involved in sports.

Some say that McDonald’s lies, misleads, and tempts people with bad food, food that is potentially dangerous, and they should be held accountable for their effect on the increasing obesity and diabetes in our country. I can see their point, but we put food in our mouths! We are not eating the advertisement; we drive to McDonald’s and eat the food! We watch the TV commercials and read the ads. If you can’t resist temptation, don’t put it in your way.

It is a convenience that is normally less expensive than going to a real sit-down restaurant. I can’t argue that point. I find it sad that the healthy choices, salads for example, are the most expensive thing on the menu.

So, if you don’t want to eat it, don’t. If you don’t want to feed it to your children, don’t! The responsibility of choosing to eat right rests with us, the parents, not the corporations.

Just my opinion. What’s yours?