10/11/2010 - 12:52:44
San Francisco has become the first major US city to ban fast-food restaurants from including toys with children’s meals that do not meet health guidelines.
The city council gave the measure final approval yesterday with enough in favour to survive a planned veto by Mayor Gavin Newsom.
The law, which would go into effect in December of next year, prohibits toy give-aways in fast-food children’s meals that have more than 640 milligrams of sodium, 600 calories or 35% of their calories from fat.
It also would limit saturated fats and transfats and require fruits or vegetables to be served with each meal with a toy.
“Our effort is really to work with the restaurants and the fast-food industry to create healthier choices,” said Eric Mar, the law’s chief sponsor. “What our kids are eating is making them sick, and a lot of it is fast food.”
The legislation is a big victory for activists and public health advocates who have accused food marketers of being complicit in the country’s growing childhood obesity rates. They hope other cities and counties nationwide will follow their lead.
“This will be a sign to the fast-food industry that it’s time to phase out its predatory marketing to children at large,” said Deborah Lapidus of Corporate Accountability International, a watchdog group that supported the legislation.
Backers say they hope similar obesity-curbing efforts will spread to other cities, states and the country. A similar one has already been approved in California’s Santa Clara County, where it affected about a dozen restaurants.
Mayor Newsom, meanwhile, said he plans to veto the ordinance, which he called an “unwise and unprecedented governmental intrusion into parental responsibilities and private choices.”
“Parents, not politicians, should decide what their children eat, especially when it comes to spending their own money,” he said.
The industry, which favours self-regulation, says there is no evidence that San Francisco’s law will halt childhood obesity.
McDonald’s and Burger King are among 17 major food and drink marketers who have signed on to the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, a self-regulation effort run by the Council of Better Business Bureaus.
McDonald’s says its meals advertised to children meet government nutritional standards, limiting total calories to 600 per meal and capping fats and sugars. The company also agreed to curtail advertising in schools and promote healthy lifestyles in all marketing efforts directed at children.
It sent several senior executives and others to San Francisco to oppose the measure in person.
Scott Rodrick, who owns 10 McDonald’s restaurants in San Francisco, is worried the new law could hurt his business because families account for many of his customers and they could drive a mile away to another city to buy Happy Meals.
“I think this legislation on the margin is a lot of misplaced energy,” he said. “For the government to step in and tell me where I feed my kids and how I feed my kids is not a good day for parents in the city, including for me.”
Fast-food restaurants spent $161m (€116m) advertising to children under 12 and an estimated $360m (€261m) on toys distributed with their meals in 2006, the latest figures available.