Nutrition Group to Sue McDonald's b/c their Toys are Making Kids Fat (sadly, not a joke)

The government's sights may be set on stopping Arizona, but a nutrition watchdog group has their lawsuit sights set on a much more honorable target- saving children from McDonalds' toys. (in case you're skeptical- all quotes 100% ver batim)

Un-phased by the Gulf oil crisis, immigration reform, socialism, or that guy in the Sears parking lot who tries to show me his penis, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has taken it upon themselves to solve the child obesity epidemic in the United States by attacking the problem at its source- toys that lure children to McDonalds' Happy Meals.

CSPI has served McDonald's a notice of their intent to sue on grounds of the "unfair and deceptive marketing" of their crappy plastic toys.

Via a prepared statement, CSPI's litigation director Stephen Gardner said, "McDonald's is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children." Somehow managing to keep a straight face, Gardner continued, "it's a creepy and predatory practice that warrants an injunction." When asked if his own personal practice of handing out candy to children at playgrounds was creepy, Gardner would not comment.

In the aforementioned letter, CSPI claims that the fast-food giant's toy-related promotions violate state consumer protection laws in four states and in DC, and gives McDonald's a month to agree to discontinue their practice before the lawsuit is filed. According to CSPI, these violations are the result of using toys to entice children- an act that instills in them bad eating habits and puts them at a higher risk of developing obesity, diabetes, or other fat-related diseases that only affect a tiny fraction of the American population.

McDonald's disagreed with CSPI, stating that its US advertising campaign is focused on low-calorie Happy Meals, Happy Meals to which, according to McDonald's spokesman William Whitman, the company has "added more choice and variety than ever before, a fact that has been widely reported and recognized." But because the Happy Meal was introduced in 1979, and childhood obesity has been a problem for waaaay more than 30 years, McDonald's defense is weak at best.

In an attempt to give himself a little credibility, CSPI director Michael Jacobson admitted that parents bear much of the responsibility for their child's eating habits, "but multi-billion-dollar corporations make parents' job nearly impossible by giving away toys and bombarding kids with slick advertising."

Not only is it a well documented scientific fact that children are able to hypnotize their parents into driving them to fast-food restaurants and paying for their Happy Meals, when a child wants a crappy plastic toy, unless there's a CVS, Rite-Aid, dollar store, Wal-Mart, Target, Toys 'R Us, dollar store, gas station, shopping mall, dumpster, Party City or grocery store within a 10-mile radius, the parent has no choice but to go to McDonald's and order a Happy Meal. Otherwise, the parent may be forced to use discipline to shut their whiny kid up.