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Thread: The truth about McDonalds and children

  1. #1
    tails4wagging
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    Default The truth about McDonalds and children

    IN todays Independant newspaper, there is an article written by 'supersize me' Morgan Spurlock.

    It is an extract from his new book 'Don't eat this book'.

    He mentions how 65 per cent of american are obese and that the USA is the fattest nation on earth!.
    Ray Kroc, the man behind the McDonalds empire, understood from day one that youngsters were his target market.
    He had no sooner baught the company from the McDonald brothers than Ronald McDonald was brought in to attract the kiddies to the burgers and shakes.
    In Texas Childrens Hospital where they staple obese childrens stomachs there is a McDonalds.

    It is a very good article i cannot find the web address for the newspaper, perhaps someone else can?. Its worth reading. I have sent for the book.

  2. #2
    gertvegan's Avatar
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    Default Is this it ??

    Focus: The truth about McDonald's and children

    22 May 2005, news.independent.co.uk

    Morgan Spurlock ate McDonald's food every day for a month, and recorded the stomach-churning results in his film 'Super Size Me'. Here, in an extract from his new book, Spurlock reveals the things he didn't say in the movie about Ronald McDonald and his campaign to win the hearts of our young.

    Every waking moment of our lives, we swim in an ocean of advertising, all of it telling us the same thing: consume, consume. And then consume some more. The epidemic of overconsumption begins with the things we put in our mouths. The United States is the fattest nation on earth. Sixty-five per cent of American adults are overweight; 30 per cent are obese. In the decade between 1991 and 2001, obesity figures almost doubled.

    But the truly shocking thing is that we've taught our kids how to be fat, too. Obesity rates in American children remained stable throughout the 1960s, but they began to climb in the 1970s. In the past 20 years, the rate of obesity has doubled in children and trebled in teenagers. Kids are starting to clock in as obese as early as the age of two. If we find that surprising, we shouldn't.

    During the McMonth I endured for Super Size Me, in which I ate every meal at McDonald's, every day - taking up the option to have a Supersize portion whenever I was offered it - I couldn't get over how many kids there were in the restaurants almost any time that I walked in. Children with their parents. Gaggles of them stopping off for breakfast or for a pre-dinner snack in their cute little school uniforms. Kids in all the play areas. Kids as little as three and four having Happy Meal McBirthday parties. Or, in a McDonald's in Houston, at 9am, a mother with her two very overweight kids who, having just finished their fat-filled breakfasts, were now eating hot fudge sundaes.

    Ray Kroc, the man behind the McDonald's empire, understood from Day McOne that youngsters were his target market. He had no sooner bought the company from the McDonald brothers than Ronald McDonald was brought in to attract the kiddies to the burgers and shakes.

    The first Ronald was the TV weatherman Willard Scott in his younger, but apparently not leaner, days. Scott had been doing Bozo the Clown on local television. When the show was cancelled, an enterprising McDonald's franchisee asked him to come up with a clown figure that would lure the kids into the restaurant. Kroc saw it, liked it and extended the idea to the whole country.

    But first he canned Scott. Kroc understood the negative publicity implications of an icon who looks as though he's been eating too much of the company's food. To this day you'll never see Ronald McDonald eating the food; not in any commercial. He dances and sings, grins and giggles, and smiles at the kids while they stuff their faces, but he never touches the grub. Why? Presumably because, as the late Eazy-E said in the song "The Dopeman": "Don't get high off your own supply."

    Kroc also understood the value of promoting McDonald's as a caring, family-friendly sort of place, a place with a heart, not heart disease. Early on, he began linking McDonald's with various children's charities. One executive told John F Love, author of McDonald's: Behind the Arches: "It was an inexpensive, imaginative way of getting your name before the public and building a reputation to offset the image of selling 15-cent hamburgers. It was probably 99 per cent commercial."

    Thus the Ronald McDonald House Charities were born. They have now provided housing (and McMeals) for the families of more than two million seriously ill children. Never mind the fact that today an increasing number of children are going into hospital because of eating-related illnesses.

    Talking of which, one of the most shocking things I saw during my McMonth was a McDonald's in Texas Children's Hospital - a hospital that is now stapling obese children's stomachs. To me, that seemed utterly irresponsible, a flagrant violation of the doctor's pledge of "Primum non nocere" (First, do no harm). In fact, hospitals across the US have fast-food franchises in them. The top-ranked paediatric hospital in the country, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, has a McDonald's outlet. Why shouldn't there be one in Houston?

    Recently, a combination of good information and bad publicity has encouraged some hospitals to reconsider their food-service contracts. But Ronald won't always leave without a fight. The Cleveland Clinic, for example, wants to rid America's leading heart hospital of its McDonald's. But according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer of 22 November last year, the clinic's chief executive, Dr Toby Cosgrove, received a letter from a McDonald's corporate vice-president called Marty Ranft, which "defended the franchise, and vowed ... that 'McDonald's has no intention of terminating' the remaining 10 years on its lease".

    The doctors at Texas Children's Hospital told me they had young patients who were dying of cancer, and it was hard to get them to eat anything. At least these poor kids would eat some fries, take a bite of a burger: food they were familiar with. It was junk that they had been eating all their lives.

    But it's not enough to get young people to come to your restaurants; you have to get them to keep on coming back. McDonald's operates something like 8,000 Playlands around America. They're especially attractive to children in neighbourhoods in which playgrounds are scarce. Burger King has about 3,200 of its own. Then there's the Happy Meal, launched in the US in 1979. It cost a buck in those days. Inside a cardboard box with a circus theme, children found a McDoodler stencil, a puzzle book, a McWrist wallet, an ID bracelet and McDonaldland character erasers.

    The meal-plus-toys packaging proved to be an instant hit, with the first Star Trek Happy Meals that very year. Soon, toy versions of all your favourite McDonald's mascots were included: Ronald, Grimace, Hamburglar, Mayor McCheese, Big Mac, Birdie and Captain Crook. Later, toys would be themed for tie-ins with brands and films such as Barbie, Hot Wheels, The Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo and so on. By 2003, Happy Meals accounted for about 20 per cent of all meals sold (about $3.5bn in annual revenue).

    And let's not forget the Mighty Kids Meal, introduced in America in 2001. McDonald's realised that by the time kids were eight or nine years old they felt they had outgrown the Happy Meal. Those were for little boys and girls. So the Mighty Kids Meal comes in a slightly more "grown-up" package. It offers bigger meals: a double cheeseburger, double hamburger or a six-piece chicken McNuggets, but still comes with a toy. We may be older, but we still like toys.

    In 2004, McDonald's celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Happy Meal with a year-long barrage of promotions and advertisements. The company also launched a version for adults, the Go Active! Adult Happy Meal. This included a salad, a bottle of water, a book that told you how to exercise, and an adult "toy": a Stepometer, so you could measure how few steps it was from the counter to your car.

    Good old Ronald. Under his smiling, caring guidance, an entire generation of overweight American adults who grew up following him into their local McDonald's are now raising their own overweight children to follow in their heavy footsteps.

    Recently, the magazine Advertising Age cited Ronald McDonald as No 2 on its list of top 10 advertising icons of the 20th century. Who was No 1? It was the Marlboro Man.

    * * *

    Adults bear an enormous responsibility for the obesity epidemic among children. Yet there's also no question that even conscientious parents and guardians, who really do try to do well by kids and teach them healthy life choices, are not playing on anything like a level field. They're going up against billions and billions of dollars spent every year in corporate marketing, all aimed at teaching kids to make exactly the opposite sorts of choices.

    McDonald's and the other fast-food chains make no secret of the fact that kids are their primary targets. "We have living proof of the long-lasting quality of early brand loyalties in the cradle-to-grave marketing at McDonald's, and how well it works," James McNeal, a well-known children's marketing guru and the author of Kids As Customers, has said. "We start taking children in for their first and second birthdays, and on and on, and eventually they have a great deal of preference for that brand. Children can carry that with them through a lifetime."

    Today, corporations spend more than $15bn every year on marketing, advertising and promotions meant to programme American children to consume, consume and consume some more. Why? Because they realise that children not only have more expendable income of their own, but they influence how their parents spend their hard-earned bucks, too - to the tune of more than $600bn a year. What do children choose to buy with all that cash? What do you think?

    Nor is it just their current expenditure that corporations want a slice of: they're looking at the long term. Brand logos for all sorts of crap now turn up on nursery blankets, crib toys and mobiles. In my office, I have a collection of baby bottles shaped like little bottles of 7 Up, Dr Pepper and Pepsi. I found them on eBay. When we contacted the California manufacturer, Munchkin Bottling, they told us they had produced these things for a few years in the mid-1990s. They'd developed the concept themselves, then licensed the various drinks companies' names and logos. Think about the associations formed in infants' minds by these things. Think about the mentality that sees nothing wrong in marketing them.

    Not to be outdone, McDonald's marketing genius M Lawrence Light - the guy who rolled out the "I'm lovin' it" campaign - wants to surround the youth of the world with McDonald's brand images. "Light wants to turn everything he can into an ad for McDonald's," wrote Business Week magazine in July 2004. "He's pushing the Oak Brook chain to open clothing shops so kids will walk around in T-shirts with the Golden Arches logo, just as they already do with Old Navy or Disney. He envisions a deal with the National Basketball Association to play the five-note tagline of the 'I'm lovin' it' ad in the stadium every time a player shoots a three-pointer. He's even toying with making the jingle available over the internet so it could be downloaded as a mobile phone ring tone."

    Light chose China as the market in which to open the first McKids store. "There will be 25 McKids stores there," he told Business Week. "It's got a line of toys, a line of clothes, a line of videos, all directed at young kids." Why China? Because after years of communist rule, these children can't get enough American products. A company like McDonald's can easily swoop in and corrupt young consumers from the start.

    This is adapted from 'Don't Eat This Book', by Morgan Spurlock (Penguin, £7.99). Available from Independent Books Direct on 08700 798 897 (p&p free). An extract also appeared in yesterday's 'Independent'

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Sounds like a similar book to "Fatland" (which I own and find excellent)?

    littleTigercub

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    That is truly sickening but not surprising. It's hard to drive down a road around here without passing one or more of the fast-food biggies. We still don't know what to say to our kids when they are older and ask about those evil places. Especially when they do things like the local Murder King which has a giant Darth Vadar head on top of the restaurant. We have to convince the kids (a few years down the road) that there is no connection between a movie they saw and enjoyed and those evil fast food dumps.

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    What surprises me is that the parents still support this.

    I appreciate that the kids are defenceless and easy to con, but the parents should know better and be a bit more persistant when they demand such "treats".

    The way those organisations advertise their junk is certainly not fair, but IMO, the parents are as much to blame, as it is them who are ultimately buying the stuff.

    littleTigercubs

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Quote littleTigercub
    I appreciate that the kids are defenceless and easy to con, but the parents should know better and be a bit more persistant when they demand such "treats".
    Perhaps the parents were once the defenceless and easy to con kids that were targeted, and just got hooked, which is what fat ronalds wanted.

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    That`s true, but now that the problem becomes more and more apparent there is so much campaigning against these chains and pro healthy food, that you may think some of this should rub off and make them think. This conditioning seems to be very deeply rooted in them if all this reasoning does not help...

    littleTigercub

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    At this point, I don't know who is worse: the parents or the kids. I've had parents tell me that it's horrible how me and my husband won't be taking the kids to fast food restaurants, that we are depriving them. I suppose it could be the parents way of hiding their own feelings of guilt over having raised fast food addicted children.

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Quote littleTigercub
    but IMO, the parents are as much to blame, as it is them who are ultimately buying the stuff.

    littleTigercubs
    Yes, it is so irritating!

    I think the Parents are totally to blame. They are the parents, and should be raising their children with proper nutrition, and how about some common sense to be able to read into advertising. Let's face it, if parents stopped bringing kid's in, they would stop aiming for them.

    My children dislike McDonalds immensly and when we drive by the many McD's with Playlands, they say "Mom look they have a PlayGround to lure kid's into McD's, that is so wrong!". They learned this from...you guessed it, their Mom.

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Quote feline01
    I've had parents tell me that it's horrible how me and my husband won't be taking the kids to fast food restaurants, that we are depriving them.
    I can't imagion any parent saying that! Ugh!

    A great book to read on fast-food chains and how they are affecting the face of society is "Fast Food Nation". It was a good read and scared the sh*t out of me.
    "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    I believe if you explain to the kids why you won`t take them to McD they will not feel deprived, more in opposite.

    I have no kids on my own but appreciate that it must be difficult if all other kids are having certain things. But this must be the same with raising children as vegans/vegetarians. How did you explain to them that they do not get sausages, even if all the other children do?

    Did they understand it? I guess it`s all about how you bring things across, whether they feel deprived or not.

    littleTigercub

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Quote Happiness
    I can't imagion any parent saying that! Ugh!

    A great book to read on fast-food chains and how they are affecting the face of society is "Fast Food Nation". It was a good read and scared the sh*t out of me.
    That book is what made my husband finally go vegetarian. I read it and would read out excerpts to him. He was so grossed out and sickened that he went veggie . Then a bit more tidbits of info and voila, he went vegan

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Quote feline01
    That book is what made my husband finally go vegetarian. I read it and would read out excerpts to him. He was so grossed out and sickened that he went veggie . Then a bit more tidbits of info and voila, he went vegan
    hehe beautiful! I'm trying the same tactic on my boyfriend. Not shoving it on him since he does like to hear about it but slowly I'm helping him become more aware.
    "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    I hate Mcdonalds. Although the amount of fat isn't the biggest offence. Factory farmed meat is factory farmed meat however it's served.

    To me Mcdonalds teaches children to eat meat as their isn't a vegitarian happy meal. If you want a toy you will just have to eat a corpse. Now what kind of message is that.

    Plus the toys were all made in 3rd world sweatshops.

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    cross barer
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    McEvil just keep getting eviler. They now plan to offer free wireless internet connection to user of the new handheld nintnedo sytems. I'm sure there will be many responsible adults who take advantage of this

    from BBC online

    Nintendo in McDonald's wi-fi deal

    The wi-fi service for the Nintendo DS goes live in November
    Nintendo has joined forces with McDonald's to offer free wireless internet access in the US for its DS handheld games console.
    The service means McDonald's customers will be able to play selected DS titles against other gamers around the globe.

    Rivals Sony and Microsoft already offer online gaming on their game consoles.

    Nintendo's online gaming service, is due to be launched in the US on 14 November, followed by Europe on the 25 November.

    'Removing barriers'

    McDonald's already offers wireless internet access in many US restaurants, but charges a fee.


    Nintendo DS competitor, Sony's PSP, offers wireless online play
    The access points are being supplied by US firm Wayport, which will receive an undisclosed sum from Nintendo.

    "This agreement with Wayport will bring countless people together to play games in a single, simultaneous wireless community," said Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing.

    "Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection is simple to use. Beginning with free access at participating McDonald's, we have removed one of the major barriers that have kept people from going online to play games."

    The first online games, Mario Kart DS and Tony Hawk's American SK8Land, are due to be released next month.

    Two more games, Animal Crossing: Wild World and Metroid Prime Hunters, are due to be available by the end of the year.

    In its statement, Nintendo said that its forthcoming next-generation game console, set for release in 2006, would also connect to the online gaming service.

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    More McDonalds madness. I was watching a documentary the other night about the alarming number of overweight children in Australia. They showed some of the children at little athletics getting active, and I couldn't believe it, they were all running around in their golden arches t-shirts. Sponsored by McDonalds.

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    cross barer
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    In today's news, McDonalds are set to provide the nutritional information of their products on the wrappers in 2/3 of their stores worldwide by the end of next year.
    However, salt, sugar and fat content charts are probably beyond the understanding of many adults and certainly most children.

    Sounds too much like the cigarette package warnings they have in australia, you know it's bad, don't think about it; just open it without reading...

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4376758.stm

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Those globalised p**cks have also cut out nearly all of their aussie suppliers.

    As if they weren't bad enough, they have no shame and don't care.

    My children don't go there. I just explain that they serve dead animals. I have been critisised for this but view it as no different than a human rights issues. I wouldn't let my kids eat anywhere they were butchering people and eating them eeeooooooow.

    My two pet hates are Mc's and mobile phones. It was nice at the cruelty free expo, I did not here a single stupid mobile jingle.

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Quote littleTigercub
    The way those organisations advertise their junk is certainly not fair, but IMO, the parents are as much to blame, as it is them who are ultimately buying the stuff.
    I think what adults with children should do is mute the TV when adverts come on. Doing this helps kids to not be bombarded with more than 1 of their sensory responces. This in itself would make it less likely for the children to remember, or even understand, the adverts. This wouldn't just help combat McD's but also any other orginisation that does TV advitisements. I've seen it work very well. I have friends that had parents that did this to them and now they automatically mute it themselves on adds. I hardly see them buckel to get something from these big orginisations either. Weirder still since I've know these people I do the same and mute the adverts. I don't see the point in buying much from these big orginisations now and havn't gone in a fast food place in ages due to it.

    Yes this is a blame for the parents in alot of ways. They should try to minimise time around these advertisements as much as is possible in this day and age. However brainwashing kids in such ways is also the blame of the orginisations themselves. We should be able to take them to court soley over the way they advertise their goods to draw in impressionable children and in doing so brainwashing them at a young age. Habits can be hard to change and that is what these places rely on. I also think should also be illigal for them to put the chemicals into food goods that make them addictive. (Sorry if anything is spelt wrong, hope you can still understand what I'm on about.)

    crazy_4_veg
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    sugarmouse
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Quote Happiness
    I can't imagion any parent saying that! Ugh!

    A great book to read on fast-food chains and how they are affecting the face of society is "Fast Food Nation". It was a good read and scared the sh*t out of me.

    im in the midst of reading this at the moment..it is fascinating stuff.
    i understand parents must be under so so muhc pressure with companies such as macdonalds.its everywhere and its hwat kids want, all their friends go there etc etc-macdonalds aimed their products at kids and theyre not stupid-it worked!

    but this stuff is deadly
    feline it must be difficult dealing with other parents saying things like thatare your kids vegan?

    macdonalds makes me sicki only ever go in there for a mcp*$$.
    and i have to be pretty desperate to do that!

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Quote sugarmouse

    but this stuff is deadly
    feline it must be difficult dealing with other parents saying things like thatare your kids vegan?
    Sorry but feline is no longer here. Yes her twins are vegan

    When my eldest was older enough to understand adverts on the TV he mentioned Mds toys and how much he would like one. I just told him the truth that they sold dead animals and we didnt eat then. He was happy with that and never mentioned it again.
    One thing i hate is parents who take there kids to fast food chains for treats. What sort of treat is that. I would rather take my kids for a fun day out instead of making an exciting day a trip to Mds for a fat filled, salt overdosed burger

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    I don't get the treat thing either. Some sort of treat that is...I hear people in the ASDA here though telling their kids if they are good and don't mess around in the shop they'll take them to the Mcdonalds attached for good behaviour.
    "It's not that people suddenly start breeding like rabbits; it's just that people stopped dropping like flies" - population explosion

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    It makes me so angry that as a vegan the diet I am feeding my daughter is called into question by parents who feed their children total rubbish. I bought Lara the vegan equivilent to 'smarties' yesterday and they were really pale in colour compared to Nestle ones and it made me realise they use all those artificial colouring to 'lure' the kids to them. I am trying to teach her gently. I needed shampoo the other day and I told her mummy buys this one because it's nice to the animals. I can't stand the idea that one day she'll know about meat and I am enjoying her innocence while it lasts.

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Quote treehugga
    My two pet hates are Mc's and mobile phones.
    My 3 pet hates on public transport are smelly mcdonalds food, smelly cigarettes and noisy personal stereos. Unfortunatly for me, my daily commute starts with a bus from outside mcdonalds and I seldom don't experience all 3. So many people go into McDonalds whilst waiting for the bus every single morning.
    "Mr Flibble - forum corruptor of innocents!!" - Hemlock

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    I've been in social situations where pit-stops have been made to McMurder's. I've heard parents actually tell their children that they needed to eat all of their fries. WTF??

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Quote tails4wagging
    IN todays Independant newspaper, there is an article written by 'supersize me' Morgan Spurlock.

    It is an extract from his new book 'Don't eat this book'.

    He mentions how 65 per cent of american are obese and that the USA is the fattest nation on earth!.
    Ray Kroc, the man behind the McDonalds empire, understood from day one that youngsters were his target market.
    He had no sooner baught the company from the McDonald brothers than Ronald McDonald was brought in to attract the kiddies to the burgers and shakes.
    In Texas Childrens Hospital where they staple obese childrens stomachs there is a McDonalds.

    It is a very good article i cannot find the web address for the newspaper, perhaps someone else can?. Its worth reading. I have sent for the book.
    I live a hop, skip and a jump from Tx Children's Hospital. I've had to go there many times over the years, unfortunately , but YES, there is a McMurder's there. I was there just last week, as my eldest child had to go through for x-rays...anyway, I pointed it out to him. He was holding his breath, because we actually had to walk pass it--it is INSIDE the hospital. We both said at practically the same time--oh, the hospital wants to make sure they stay in business! lol
    Pathetic.

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    McMurders? I will start calling it that now.

    I have to hold my breath nearly all the way around Asda with all it's cooking flesh smells! Yuck.
    "It's not that people suddenly start breeding like rabbits; it's just that people stopped dropping like flies" - population explosion

  28. #28
    sugarmouse
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    theres one in the asda nearby me aswell it makes me mad..i have been reading fast food nation its shockin even to me lol

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    McMurders thats a good name for them xwitchymagicx, sugarmouse will you lend me fast food nation when you have finished...

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    sugarmouse
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    yes i willguinea pigs nearly ate it lol it is good.

    when i was a vegetarian i did on occasion have one of their minging veggieburgers did any9one ever try one?

    i was reading an article in womans own magazine..if it hadnt have been so sad it would ve made me laugh out loud how it was claiming how riteous mcdeath are

  31. #31
    Why hello! xwitchymagicx's Avatar
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    I've only had the Quorn burger they had...yuck
    "It's not that people suddenly start breeding like rabbits; it's just that people stopped dropping like flies" - population explosion

  32. #32
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Quote sugarmouse
    yes i willguinea pigs nearly ate it lol it is good.

    when i was a vegetarian i did on occasion have one of their minging veggieburgers did any9one ever try one?

    i was reading an article in womans own magazine..if it hadnt have been so sad it would ve made me laugh out loud how it was claiming how riteous mcdeath are
    I rememeber seeing the book the other day, being eaten by mufty! lol
    Even when i was a meat eater i never had a McMurderBurger they looked revolting then!! I remember going in there a few times with an ex's kid and the excitment it caused among the kids, it was like they needed their daily fix of fat and salt.
    The only way is to educate kids from an early age,is to teach them in schools! but the pulling power of governments and multinational firms is to great to allow this to happen. To much money involved!!

  33. #33

    Default McDonald's and Chicken Little

    So I just wanted to start a conversation about this. feel free to jump in.
    I keep seeing all these commercials for the new movie "Chicken Little" with McDonald's promoting it. They are now serving their toys in happy meals and such. I find this terribly disturbing (but, that's not anything new for McDeath). It hurts my heart so much to think about all the little kids going to see the movie, getting attached to the characters and knowing they are chickens, then heading over to eat at McDonald's so they can get a toy in their chicken nugget happy meal or something. I want to run in there and point to what they are eating, then point to the toy, and help them make the connection! I mean, I know that place promotes all those kids movies and they always do stuff like that- but I just found it completely absurd to promote a movie aimed for kids for them to eat the character they are going to indubitably fall in love with... anyone get what I'm saying? Of course you do. disturbing!
    "Boy, I got a vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals."
    -- Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid

  34. #34
    vegan pizza! thecatspajamas1's Avatar
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    Default Re: McDonald's and Chicken Little

    I know, I noticed that too!! I saw the commerical for the happy meal coming with a Chicken Little toy. I was waiting for them to mention chicken nuggets in the commercial, but they strategically didn't. It makes me want to pull my hair out!

  35. #35

    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    (off topic, but thanks for merging my post with the main one. I didn't realize it would fit with an already existing post. Sorry! )
    "Boy, I got a vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals."
    -- Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid

  36. #36
    princessemma
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    I had the Quorn burger once as well, made me feel totally sick. I can honestly say I would rather starve than eat another one of those.

  37. #37
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    What is wrong with parents; they should be giving a shit about the crap they are feeding their children
    I remember going on a shopping trip to Belfast as a child and the highlight of the day was going to McDonalds which I was told was gonna be really fantastic. It was my first visit and boy was I disappointed, the food was nowhere near as tasty as the food in our local chippie. Yet, so many kids seem to love it or the idea of it.
    I am always shocked when parents say they would be vegetarian if it wasn't for their kids, there is such a lack of nutritional education.
    On the news this morning it said that unhealthy eating is costing the health service 3 times more than smokers do. Not that I'm advocating smoking but when are we gonna have a fat/unhealthy food tax?!

  38. #38
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Ff's!!! the state of folk in Tesco's this evening! There were right fat (I mean gigantic) families with totally hyperactive screaming fat children loading their trollies with coke, plastic cheese, cheap meat, chocolate and crisps. I felt sick!
    They all looked half dead already. We felt proud of our pile of fruit and veg and vegan products
    Silent but deadly :p

  39. #39
    princessemma
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    McDonalds are telling kids on the adverts to exercise for an hour a day. Some of the kids they are aiming their cr*p at think losing the TV remote and having to change channel by hand is excercise. Part of me is thinking yeah because it'll take at least an hour's running to burn off one of those so called happy meals.

  40. #40

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    I don't think there are enough words in the English language to describe my utter contempt for McDonald's and all the other fast food restaurants that serve such fatty, processed sludge. Even back when I was an omni, I refused to eat the "food" at these establishments. In high school, I had a group of friends whose idea for a "fun evening" was to spend hours loitering inside the local Taco Bell after eating a dinner of slimy fake cheese and death wrapped in a tortilla. And they thought I was weird for refusing to eat any of it!

    I do remember my parents taking me and my brother to fast food places when I was a kid, though, before I reached the age of reason. Burger King was my little brother's favorite place to eat, and if my parents decided they wanted to take us out, he would whine and cry and yell until they agreed to take us to Burger King. Why did he like Burger King so much? That's right; they were the only fast food joint in our town that had a "playplace" for kids.

    The last meat I ever ate was one of those chicken sandwiches at Wendy's. I was in a situation where it was all that was going to be available for me to eat that day, so I forced myself to eat the sandwich even though just looking at it made my stomach churn. I felt sick the rest of the day and decided that I was never going to eat meat again. So, thank you fast food for pushing me to become veg*n.

  41. #41
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Hello all I'm new to this site... It seems like a very nice forum.....In response to the origiinal point, my parents came to visti for the Christmas holiday and when I went to work they would ask my kids if they wanted fast food.....My kids told them "no and you shouldn't be eating it anyways grandma and grandpa".....I agree with the sentiment that as parents we have to know the playing field and educate our children from the start.....

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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Welcome, Sheri Beri.

    It sounds like you've done a wonderful job educating your children.
    Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein

  43. #43

    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    i knew this guy at 8th grade, who had been a veggie for his whole life. then we went on a school-trip, and he got this crazy idea that he HAD to taste a McCruelty-burger, and he had one mouthful, chewed it for a while, spitted it out and said; i'm never gonna have meat ever again. that just made my day

  44. #44
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Quote DianeVegan
    Welcome, Sheri Beri.

    It sounds like you've done a wonderful job educating your children.
    Thankyou for the very kind words Diane....and the welcome...
    Mother nature doesn't except excuses only man does.....

  45. #45
    treehugga's Avatar
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    My 4 year old has started asking to go to McDonalds as most of the little kids he knows go there. I can't let him go and i explained why ie they're dead animals etc. He still feels he should go if all the other little kids are going. He's actually starting to feel very left out of things even though we try and encourage more healthy ethical eat outs.

  46. #46
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    He's also started challenging the other kids on why they would go there to eat dead animals which is making them ostrasize him and their parents become distressed.

  47. #47
    princessemma
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    I know what your going through I'm raising my 3 year old daughter vegan and it's not easy. Are there any vegetarian children in your son's nursery or playgroup they might be a bit more accepting of his beliefs?

  48. #48
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    treehugga, has sienna sent you my answer to your question yet?
    Eve

  49. #49
    treehugga's Avatar
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Quote princessemma
    I know what your going through I'm raising my 3 year old daughter vegan and it's not easy. Are there any vegetarian children in your son's nursery or playgroup they might be a bit more accepting of his beliefs?
    No I live in a rural area and I think I'm the only person here that doesn't eat meat

  50. #50
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    Default Re: The truth about McDonalds and children

    Quote eve
    treehugga, has sienna sent you my answer to your question yet?
    No I thought I had to wait for the next addition. Hopefully, you will be able to solve my riddle .

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