The article doesn't make clear that county ordinances only apply to unincorporated parts of the county.

Are high fructose corn syrup flavored drinks, such as Tropicana Cranberry juice beverage, Coke, A&W Root Beer and Squirt also banned? The juice beverage actually contains more calories per ounce than the sodas.
The only drink in our refrigerator that sugar-sweetened is Gatorade which has fewer calories per ounce than the other beverages.
Perhaps mandatory physical education would be more appropriate.
Rather than passing laws, why not suggest comparative charts containing relevant information?

So if a restaurant offers "Combo #3" with chicken nuggets, fries, and a soda, that's okay. But if a restaurant offers "Kids Meal #3" with chicken nuggets, fries, and a soda, that's not okay.

Am I missing something here?

A step in the right direction! I look at morbidly obese children and wonder why this is not considered neglect. Evidence shows these children's lifespans will be severely impacted by damage to their kidneys, heart, liver, etc. parents can punish their children as long as they don't leave marks. But what about the enlarged heart, narrowed blood vessels, and fatty liver they are causing by not encouraging healthy eating habits? Some parents have demonstrated that they are not capable of or responsible enough to make health decisions for their children. This ban simply limits the amount of damage they are able to inflict.

This worries me 4 people decided this for the whole county?
No public discussion, vote

Ban kids' meals at Santa Clara County restaurants following an ordinance passed 4-0-1 Tuesday morning by the Board of Supervisors.

Stupid feel good nonsense.

Don't like the way parents are raising their kids? So what. No one asked you.

No one is perfect. Are we going to ban everything that's bad for us? Red meat? Bacon?

Don't want to pay for someone's fat kids? Then stop paying. This is what happens when the Government becomes the answer to everything. Eventually the Government becomes the parents.

Eventually they'll find something you like doing and tell you stop.

another typical stupid idea that the county supervisors force upon county business's. The good news is that their laws apply only to a few retailers located on county land. The bad news is that they usually want cities to engage in their sill behavior and pass similar laws.

I dont like something so lets ban it. Crazy. This is what we get from schools and parent not teaching values such as not harming other individuals and letting individuals choose whats best for themselves

Is the county governnent "morbidly obese" with tax money? Let's see their population (of employees and outside consultants and other helpers) along with their salaries and benefit packages.

We stopped drinking Gatorade after I heard a dentist tell another parent, "I would rather have your son drink Coke than Gatorade".

I was so shocked that I asked him when it was our turn to see him. He said that Gatorade is acidic and actually breaks down the enamel of the kids' teeth, and then the sugar gives them cavities.


FYI: The dentist did say that water is best. :)

As our kids were growing up we allowed our kids to drink soda with a fast food meal once a week on Saturdays, a family bonding and after sport treat as we did not want to appear to be the mean parents. They never had soda at home along with a lot of other junk food.

Now they are adults in their 20s and no longer under parental control. Their diets are dreadful and soda is one of their daily habits. They stopped wearing bike helmets when they turned 18 also.

They freely admit they are now rebelling against their strict and unfair upbringing. We can only hope that when they are parents themselves they will see things differently.

From my perspective, as soon as something is banned it suddenly becomes that much more attractive.

I agree, water has a place. But athletes and other physically active people need to replace nutrients lost through perspiration. Gatorade does that. Perhaps followed by rinsing with a sip of water would solve the cavity problem. Even milk, when left on teeth, will cause cavities.
Some time ago, high schools were prohibited from selling sodas in vending machines. It seems that did nothing to address the obesity issue. Yet, much time was consumed.
Let people make informed choices.

I have never asked for help raising my daughter.....I paid for all of her college.....and I like it that way.....I make the rules in my house and I am totally against 4 -6 or 8 people.....sitting on the city council or board of supervisors telling me what I can feed my child ......how about you mind your own business except for government issues....

I think we should place a proposition on the ballot that allows the voters to restrict the diets of the County Supervisors to a diet voted on by the county residents, with fines of $1000 every time they violate it. Maybe then they might get the point that we don't need them telling us what to eat or drink or how to raise our children.

Even if they are right, they have no right to legislate morality to the rest of us. That is why the condom proposition for adult entertainers failed. Most of us don't watch adult entertainment and probably don't think it should even exist, but we also know that we don't have the right to ban something just because we are personally offended by or opposed to it.

I know people will say 'this is about health'. Which proves what the critics have been saying, "Once the government can make decisions citing 'health concerns', what aspect of your life can they not control?". Almost everything you do or consume can be dictated based on 'health and safety concerns'. There is no hell so bleak as one created by the Tyranny of Good Intentions.


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

nobody is telling you how to raise your kids or what you can feed them, geez. If you want to feed them poison you can still buy them that. It causes more than just obesity. So they aren't included in a kids meal in a few restaurants. The government has let corporations control them with false marketing and information, here's a tiny step in the right direction. Bacon is much healthier than sugar and HFCS, but we're only just hearing about that.

Really Nikki? Here we go again with the extreme examples. Who said anything about feeding kids poison? But that seems to be the attitude of people that think the Government needs to dictate to the rest of us what to do, and feels the need to 'protect us from ourselves because we can't make good choices'.

And yes, the state DOES tell us how to raise our children. There are many laws on the books that dictate what parents are and are not permitted to do. The public schools also in some cases tell children that their parents have 'the wrong views' or 'are old fashioned' or punish children by giving them bad grades if they say or write things that are politically unpopular.

This may be a tiny step in the right direction, but the WRONG people are taking it by taking away our choices. If the restaurants made the decision on their own, fine. If the parents or the kids made the decision themselves, fine. If a third party (like government) interferes in a transaction between two parties that is not illegal and that both parties are satisfied with, NOT GOOD.

The same thing was done during prohibition, after all, alcohol is unhealthy, and look how well that worked out.

Why can't the Government force people who are overweight to diet? After all, they are unhealthy, right?

I'm pro-choice and I think people need to be free to choose to do whatever they want as long as it is not illegal.


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

Actually I totally agree that the government totally oversteps it's bounds when it comes to dictating how to raise children - although I have not seen your example. I would just prefer to live in a country where people get the right information and large corporations don't get to pay the government to share false information or make decisions like making marijuana illegal but cigarettes and alcohol legal? If you think being overweight automatically means you are unhealthy you are also getting false information.

But I'm really not sure how not including sugary drinks in a restaurant kids meal is telling us how to raise your children. you can always not go to that restaurant. I'd of course prefer just to make it illegal. A lot of crap we allow in food here is actually banned in Europe, as the US decides it's ok to use until proven not safe, versus first testing to make sure it's safe. Because "freedom" and of course money.

@pretty stupid. You are correct. The County is already doing this by dangling grants to cities, but only if cities adopt a healthy policy that would require any city event to have healthy option, ie if you want to have a cake to celebrate the city's birthday, you would have to have an equal amount of healthy food. It is quite simply ridiculous and an overreach.

I do think adding calories to all menus and food items helps to enable people to understand the choices they are making.

My child only drinks milk and water. So far he hasn't even wanted to try other things because fortunately he doesn't have a sweet tooth, but I do worry that rules for rules sake do create the backlash behavior mentioned above. What needs to be taught is managing calorie intake to lifestyle and enable people to make good choices.

If soda didn't exist none of us would be any worse off, but banning it just makes it more attractive.

How about cigarette smoking?

Hmm, the govt thinks the people are stupid and can't decide what is best for themselves and their children. So the govt no longer governors, but starts to control your lives.

The New Royalties, the upper class, the city and it's workers. Big bloated salaries and pensions and medical cost all covered for life. And then if you want you can double dip, and rack in more taxpayer money by receiving pension and a salary at the same time. All this, thanks to the unions.

And people wonder why the people are getting pissed. Just govern and let people live free. But that is too much to ask for in a socialist, liberal, communist country.

You wingnuts are hilarious -- complaining about being in "a socialist, liberal, communist country" when it's types like you who want to stick the government's nose into our lives when we live it in a way that doesn't suit *your* agenda...