Taking the Happy out of Happy Meals

When my kids were young I was one of those parents.  You know the type-insists that the family sit down for meals together, chooses  and prepares the food, sets limits on the junk.  Heck, I would often go so far as to tell my children, "no".  But in the land of the perpetual nanny state, California, one lawmaker no longer trusts parents to supervise their own children's meals:

In an effort to combat the nation's epidemic of childhood obesity, Supervisor Yeager is proposing Santa Clara County create an ordinance regulating fast food restaurants' ability to offer toys or other incentives with kids' meals.

"Ten out of 12 meals that are associated with the promotional toys are the high-caloric, high-fat, high-sodium meals," said Yeager.

You don't need parenting classes, or the government, to know that a steady diet of fast food isn't the best choice for children.  You don't have to be a genius to know that children ask for the fast food meal because of the toy.  However, children are not in charge of what the family eats, and if they are, the family has bigger problems than food issues.

It would be easy to blow this off as typical California silliness except, more and more, it is typical of government interference with adult decision making.  How long will it be before the nanny state is using "smart meters" to turn off our lights so we will know the correct time to go night night?