The president of Santa Clara County’s Board of Supervisors is Ken Yeager, author of a controversial bill passed yesterday by a 3-2 vote. The bill aims to prevent fast food restaurants from giving free toys to children ordering unhealthy food. According to Ken Yeager, children are enticed to choose food based upon the toy being given away, “The ordinance breaks the link between unhealthy food and prizes.” The bill does not prevent fast food restaurants from giving away free toys however the food choices must meet guidelines according to calories, sodium, sugar and fat content.

The Santa Clara Board of Supervisors has agreed upon a period of 90 days before putting the ordinance into practice. The fast food industry, obvious opponents of the bill has 90 days to improve the nutritional value of their children’s meals in order to continue to offer promotional toys. Says Ken Yeager, “If the restaurant industry can come up with proposals that meet the same goals, we’ll take that into consideration. We wanted to at least give them the opportunity — and many said they are trying to do their part — to come up with something that would work.”

Many parents who were present during the occasionally heated discussion fell on either side of the issue including a mother of two from San Jose who refuted the link between free toys and childhood obesity. “We don’t go for the toy, we go for the food” stated Tracy Nashner. The Mayor of Saratoga, Kathleen King a mother of five disagreed and expressed her gratitude to the County, “I’m happy to see the county I live in taking a very proactive role.”

source: http://www.techjackal.net/other/2010/04/28/breaking-the-link-between-fast-food-and-toys/

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