With a Happy Meal in hand, San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar introduced an ordinance that would bay toy giveaways in kids' meals that exceed 600 calories.
"People see that obesity is an epidemic and addressing it with a modest measure like this makes a lot of sense because nothing is more important than the health of our children," he said.
The ordinance would not only restrict calories but also require more fruits and vegetables per meal. Fast food giants likes McDonald's, Burger King and Taco Bell are considered the worst offenders of high calorie, high fat menus – McDonald's disagrees.
"We offer apple dippers, which a cup a half a cup of fruit and a full serving of fruit. We offer low fat white milk a choice for parents so, I would totally disagree that our Happy Meals do not meet the nutritional guidelines for Americans," McDonalds spokesperson Karen Wells said.
Mc Donlalds already offers some healthy alternatives. Some Happy Meals offer chicken nuggets, apples slices, caramel dipping sauce and one percent low fat chocolate milk. The total calories are less than 500.
Meals that are in compliance with the new nutritional guidelines would be allowed to include those promotional toys.
Scott Rodreick owns 10 of the 19 McDonalds in San Francisco and he says the legislation is too confusing.
"We are going to have to figure out a very complicated graph of what things qualify what things don't qualify, so you could imagine if I as a McDonald's restaurant owner, is confused with how this language gets laid out, what on earth is my employees going to do at the front counter," he said.
