whose fault is it anyway

For my rhetorical source I found an article online that I disagree with. The article talks about how McDonalds needs to assess its impact on childhood obesity. One of the lawsuits mentioned in the article is one the sought to stop McDonalds from putting free toys in their Happy Meals to advertise to children. The reason that I disagree with this idea is that although the free toys do target children specifically, children do not get up and drive themselves to McDonalds. Parents play a huge role in deciding what children eat and what they are exposed too. Although there are commercials on television, if a child never got the chance to eat a Happy Meal then they would never know that there were free toys included. Choosing to allow your children to eat fast food allows them to be exposed to the greasy, fried “food” that is sweeping through America. After allowing the first taste of this type of food, the addictive qualities kick in and it is hard to not think about it. Taking your children to eat fast food is enabling them to adopt whatever type of eating habits they want. To complain that children are becoming obese and that fast food companies are at fault is missing the middleman in the equation. Parents are the factors that are deciding what the children eat, which directly affects their weight gain. The article also says that critics wish McDonalds would serve healthier food to children, but nobody is forcing the children to eat at McDonalds. If you want to have healthier options for your children the simplest solution is to prepare a healthy meal for them at home, not to take them to a fast food restaurant and hope that there will be something healthy on the menu.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/24/us-mcdonalds-obesity-idUSBRE84N1CI20120524