Let's be logical here... there is a period for things to last... 12 year old crackers??? HUmmm, don't think I would give that to any kid, even if I hated him

I also agree with offering food without permition being rude and in many cases dangerous.

Junk food does not kill anyone in any occasional situation, but it does not help either...it is a matter of conscience.

Hmmmm... on rethinking this, I realized that said hamburger patty has been in an airtight plastic container for all those years.

-1 for McDonalds, or +1 for modern food storage technology?

A very big -1!!! The single thinking of it makes me sick :P

Yeah I remember reading about that non aging cheeseburger. Eeewww! Also has anyone seen the movie Supersize Me about the guy who at only fast food for 3 months or something like that and how it affected his health and weight. Very interesting stuff. Yeah fast food should only be eaten ever once in a while not all the time.

This is heading a little off topic, but it's relevant to relate a little tale at this point.

Years ago, in Sydney, my coworkers gave me a McDonald's cheeseburger with a candle placed in the centre, as a joke for my birthday. I placed it (exposed, on a plate), on top of a filing cabinet in the air-conditioned office, and forgot about it.

More than a year later, I found it again. It had shrunk by about 10%, no doubt due to water loss in the dry atmosphere, but was otherwise completely unaffected -- the buns, the meat, the cheese, the token slice of gherkin, the dab of sauce, were all as they had been more than 12 months previously. There was no odour at all.

A little concerning.

"When it comes to their children, parents have no sense of humour..."

Everyone's feeding / eating oily fish at least twice a week, right? This is indeed a weird thread.

Not sure if this has been posted before. To my mind it's rather over the top. As someone else tweeted, "makes me want a burger, but not heroin".

Ugh, creepy. One would think it is a little extreme, but they are right. Food is so made look like real food and presented that way to us, even when it is basically just dirt. Disgusting.

Ugh, I hate that strategy. It's not what you eat, it's not eating in moderation.


Makes me want a nice juicy burger too.

Nom nom nom nom nommmmmmmmmmmm

Probably the quantity of junk food is the magical word. Only a little bit of french fries once in a while is not a disaster but every day is definitely unhealthy.

I don't think parents should pass judgement on how other parents raise their kids. Especially parents you don't know! That mother could just have been having a bad day and decided to give her kid a one-off treat. Who knows what she does at home? I find so many mothers have so many comments to make about other mothers, yet they get SO offended when anyone comments on THEIR parenting style! Just remember you never know the full story and parenting is not an easy job - so just worry about your own kids and not anyone else's!

Since this thread was started, i've taken my son a grand total of 3 times to McDonalds to get the dragon toys in the happy meal. I wish we had never been there. For months afterwards, whenever he was tired and hungry he started demanding to go there. Full-on tantrums and shouting. I don't know what they put in the stuff, but we haven't been back their since.

In other places, I did not have to go to mcdonalds as there was so many child friendly's proper restaurants. Just easier to stay home here..

Yes! My children had wholemeal fairy bread for their parties at that stage. Add brightly coloured vegetable sticke, fancy cut pieces of bright fruit. Neither they, nor their friends ever objected.

KIds do not need fast food - none of us do. NOr do they need the processed baby cereals that the pharmacutical companies have brainwashed many into believing that babies need as first foods. ( and dont let me start on milk formula...)

Indeed. I'm fairly sure that I was fed the same stuff my parents were eating (for the most part), but blended.

I agree that McDonalds isn't exactly healthy and good for kids but I would say that you should not overreact in any subject.

Have you seen teenagers these days? Redbull and McD's is normal for them.

I started to wonder "why" lately, especially that I see parents feeding their kids with dar-vida and other super healthy or more healthy stuff. Maybe these teenagers are so fed up with the healthy life style their parents made them to live in, they just go full on with the things they were forbidden to have?

Just my two cents.

Be careful throwing stones at other people's parenting styles...

As for junk food - I think even here moderation is best. Here's a personal story about NOT using moderation to help you see what I mean...

When my first son was a wee lad I had a "no toy guns" rule in our house. Not even water guns. I just didn't see a reason to treat any kind of gun as a toy and so decided without exception there should be no such things in our house.

When we went to visit friends with children he'd dash off to the playroom and hide in there playing with all the toy guns he could find. It was sort of freakishly obsessive.

I realized my total ban on toy guns had caused this worrying behavior and had the sense to adjust our home rule. His freakish behavior stopped immediately - he played like a normal kid with all the toys when we visited friends houses from then on.

Moderation - for things that are not immediately dangerous, we've found this to be the best approach.

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... the bright tingle of the stars, or the music of the Aurora, or best of all the silky feeling of the moonlight on our skin...

Or maybe, just maybe, they were constantly exposed to it when young and don't know better...

Like said ealier, moderation is the best. My daughter had some fries already. (, yep) and of course she loves it. But you see the problem with kids is if they like something very very much it is difficult to make them eat something else when it is in front of them. I wish she didn't try it just yet when it is still quite difficult to make her understand....

So it seems settled: McD is bad. How about KFC then? Can the thousands of expats in Switzerland with severe withdrawal symptoms be all that wrong?