Colorful ads, toys in there "happy meals" and Ronald Mc Donald's showing skinny happy "cool" kids eating a Mc Donald's hamburgers in commercials."Ronald McDonald is the 'Joe Camel' of the 21st century," said Dr. Mark Donohoe, "and material which is inherently deceptive to our young people buys customers from cradle to grave."
About 16,000 health professionals from around the country signed the open letter, including 50 from Portland. McDonald's spends $400 million a year marketing to children.
Arguably no children's meal product has been more successful than the Happy Meal. Ever since the first Happy Meal was sold in 1979, McDonald’s has released thousands of varieties of toys, making them a treasured collector’s item. The toy is an ingenious promotion tool since advertisers pick up the tab to include them in the meal, and it the main reason why over 2.5 million Happy Meals are sold each year accounting for nearly 40 percent of McDonald’s profits.
Recently, McDonald's has pledged to distribute 15 million books in England over the next two years. In its Happy Meals. Instead of toys. They focus on encouraging children to read, and to read anything they can, whether that's menus in restaurants, non-fiction books or magazines – anything which spreads children's enjoyment of reading. The British book giveaway organization head Conal Presho told The Guardian. With books replacing toys in British Happy Meals, one thing kids won't be reading are assembly instructions for brightly-colored plastic gee-gaws.
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