Thaindian News

By Meena Kar
California, May 1, (THAINDIAN NEWS) As a measure of introducing healthy lifestyle and food habits among children, the County Supervisors in California have asked to ban all toys that come with the high calorie fast-food meals for children. According to reports, the Santa Clara officials believe that toys act as a potential allurement for kids to consume food items that are high on sugar, sodium and fat. These food items lead to long-term health problems and obesity. Some reports claim that the Santa Clara officials will issue fines as high as $1000 USD to restaurants that would be found continuing the practice of providing toys to kids along with food items. The ban will be implemented from July this year and is the first of its kind.

The officials will also issue a health guideline to the restaurants for children food reportedly. According to them, “unhealthy” meals are those that have 2037 kilojoules of salt. Food items that have more than 35 per cent of their kilojoules from fat or 10 percent from added sugar are also kept under the “unhealthy food” category. However, not only high calorie food item, toys would be banned from all the meals aimed for children.

The ban means that the McDonald’s Happy Meal toys and other such fast food giant chains have to do away with the childrens’ toys that they gift with the food. However, there are many people who are not in favor of the ban and have voiced their protest. They believe that the government, by taking this step is getting too much involved in parenting decisions.