Happy Meals
City Councilman Leroy Comrie's bill to ban toys in Happy Meals with over 500 cal. is fat-headed
Less-than-svelte City Councilman Leroy Comrie, who doesn't like how much he weighs or the food he served his children, appears to be working through his feelings of personal and parental inadequacy:
He is the now world-famous fellow who introduced a bill to ban restaurants from giving away toys with meals containing more than 500 calories and other evils.
This is, of course, a frontal attack on the dreaded Happy Meal. McDonald's foes believe the cheap toy is the gateway drug to the cheeseburger and fries, and that the cheeseburger and fries are the gateway drug to a life of unhappy eating.
Then you have a heart attack and die.
Comrie's measure springs from the Council's penchant for trying to regulate everything that moves, and many things that don't, in the delusional belief that legislation can solve all the world's ills - obesity included.
If Council members want to turn kids away from fast food, they'd be better off regulating restaurant decor and branding.
Out with bright colors; in with gray and brown. Out with a young, smiling Wendy; in with an old, snarling one. Out with a happy Burger King; in with Comrie's Grimace-resembling face.
Then again, the Council could go after all convenient foods that are unhealthy when eaten to excess by attacking a wide variety of pernicious influences. TV would have to go. The nice proprietor of the Greek diner who gives lollipops to children would be held up for public shaming. And permissive parents would be required to get licenses in The Lost Art of Saying No.
Finally, Comrie's bill is nutritionally dubious.
He'd ban distribution of toys with any meal that has more than 500 cal., 600 miligrams of sodium and 35% of calories from fat.
Guess how many calories the Mayo Clinic says a boy 4 to 8 years old should eat every day? The answer is 1,400 to 2,000. For a boy 9 to 13, the recommended calorie range is 1,800 to 2,600.
The Department of Agriculture recommends that a 9-year-old girl who is classified as sedentary should consume about 1,600 cal. per day. If she is moderately active, she should eat between 1,600 and 2,000 cal. per day.
A Happy Meal for lunch (hold the Coke or shake) falls well within those ranges. Heck, so would eating a Happy Meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner (again, hold the Coke or shake).
The American Heart Association has determined that children from 4 to 18 years of age should get 25% to 35% of their calories from consumption of fat. A cheeseburger's calories from fat? Thirty-seven percent. Calories from fat in small fries? Forty-three percent.
Bad. Bad. Bad. Ban. Ban. Ban.
While we're at it, let's pass a law regulating how much publicity a legislator can get from introducing a dumb bill. That's the only thing that might stop these fatheads.
(Published by NY Daily News - April 7, 2011)