Why the Happy Meal is a crime—and not just a culinary one

But I am not inter­ested in debat­ing good or bad par­ent­ing. Nor am I inter­ested in argu­ing over whether this law­suit is a good idea. How many calo­ries are in a Happy Meal and whether you can ask for car­rots instead of fries is irrel­e­vant to me. I am not even going to give you all the scary data about how America’s kids are get­ting fat­ter and sicker. Nor do I care whether the cause is fast food or video games.

That’s all been done. Instead, let’s talk law. Because that minor detail seems to have eluded most of the national con­ver­sa­tion about how food com­pa­nies mar­ket to children.

Our legal sys­tem does not allow mar­keters to adver­tise just as they wish, either to chil­dren or adults. We have con­sumer pro­tec­tion laws because mar­keters aren’t exactly trust­wor­thy. From time to time, they’ve been known to stretch the truth.

That’s why both at the fed­eral and state lev­els, the law requires that adver­tis­ers not engage in decep­tive mar­ket­ing. Otherwise, they would have an unfair advan­tage over con­sumers. In other words, the law aims to pro­vide a level play­ing field between the two par­ties. The key legal terms here are “decep­tive” and “unfair.” Bear with me; I am sav­ing you three years of law school and a gru­el­ing bar exam, not to men­tion years of debt.

Now, what about mar­ket­ing to chil­dren? Ample sci­ence, along with state­ments by var­i­ous pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tions tells us that mar­ket­ing to young chil­dren is both decep­tive and unfair. Why? Because young chil­dren sim­ply do not have the cog­ni­tive capac­ity to under­stand that they are being mar­keted to; they can­not com­pre­hend “per­sua­sive intent,” the linch­pin of adver­tis­ing. Here’s how the nation’s trade group for kids’ doc­tors puts it: “The American Academy of Pediatrics con­sid­ers adver­tis­ing directly to young chil­dren to be inher­ently decep­tive, and exploits chil­dren under the age of 8 years.”

So, if adver­tis­ing to young chil­dren is inher­ently decep­tive, and decep­tive adver­tis­ing is ille­gal under fed­eral law and in most states, how is it even hap­pen­ing? And doesn’t this mean that not just food, but all mar­ket­ing to young chil­dren is cur­rently ille­gal? I get this ques­tion a lot. The answer is yes.

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