In my classmate Francesca’s blog, she writes that McDonalds is engaging in unethical marketing practices by targeting children with its Happy Meal product, based on the unhealthiness of the product offered within. I respectfully disagree, and I’ll believe so for two reasons: The controlled environment children within the age of a Happy Meal consumer mean that they have little control over the decision made regarding whether they actually get a Happy Meal, and it is not unethical to be unhealthy.
To cover the first point, my reasoning is this: a child of the Happy Meal age has no financial independence and will, in any normal circumstance, be without a parent or other figure deemed responsible enough by the parent at McDonalds. A child may know it wants a Happy Meal, but it is wholly up to the person accompanying the child to decide what is best for him or her. So the question is, is it unethical to sell unhealthy things to children?
The answer is clearly no. If it were, countless candies, sweet treats, drinks and food should be banned, or at least appropriately censored to make packaging unappealing and advertising nonexistent. Being unhealthy may be unwise, but it is certainly not morally wrong to eat a McDonalds cheeseburger.
For these two reasons I contend it is legitimate for McDonalds to advertise to children. If kids had the power to go out and buy unhealthy food without their parents knowledge, it would not be. However, there are barriers preventing such reckless behaviour. On a personal side note, it seems good to me for kids to see something, want it, but learn that they can’t just have it all the time, or at all. This is certainly not a bad way to build character in a child. Finally, I ate Happy Meals as a kid, and I’m doing alright in regards to health, so I think damning advertising to kids and unhealthy eating as unethical is a step too far.
Sources:
https://blogs.ubc.ca/francescamoscone/2013/01/21/happy-meal-not-a-healthy-meal/
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